


Limbo

by SociopathicArchangel



Series: 25 Lives [6]
Category: Don't hug me I'm scared - Fandom
Genre: Awkward Friendship, Gen, i broke a record, nightmare editing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 09:53:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3806107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SociopathicArchangel/pseuds/SociopathicArchangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Backstage pass. Shrignold fills in the blanks, secrets are spilled, arguments are made, life gets weirder. But hey, it’s their lives after all, and since when was everything normal?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limbo

There has always been something weird about the redhead who works in the Toxicology department.

He always _always_ came to work on time, on the dot; doesn’t bat an eyelash at the most gruesome pictures they often receive at the station and Terry is convinced that this guy knows how to clean blood off of every surface.

Evidenced by that one time a suspect, later proven culprit, tried to attack a police officer while they were being questioned. It turned out one of them did get wounded and was covering it up until they got the man restrained. Also, said detective was slowly bleeding into a leather couch.

The redhead was able to clean it up, spotless.

But what Terry finds so incredibly odd is not the man’s habits.

One time, Terry found him rolling his sleeves up during a hot summer and his forearms were marked with what looked like scribbles. But they formed a pattern, some of them were angular, some of them were spiral, some of them formed several circles and he knew he spotted a star there somewhere. They were slowly being smeared from the thin layer of sweat the man had.

His stuff always had markings on them that you could barely catch unless you were paying attention, because they were written in ink that nearly matched the object’s color. For example, his black briefcase had what he later looked up as the Key of Solomon written in red permanent marker, easily missed since the dark red ink camouflaged against the black.

During breaks, he mostly spent them alone and Terry wouldn’t have pried if it weren’t for that dog-eared, ratty notebook he always carried, and whenever he read off of it in hushed tones, it sounded oddly like Latin and another language that made his ears want to bleed.

His friends weren’t any better either.

There was that one guy – dark green hair, weird gold eyes – who looked at everything with a critical eye (like he was analyzing everything, and Terry had seen that look enough times to be familiar with it in the station), a rude mouth when ticked off, and was smart. Scary smart. Like maybe Batman or Sherlock Holmes smart. The thing was, whenever he dropped by and the redhead discussed cases with him, he would always point out things. Quick to notice. Tipped them off more than once. In fact, Terry thinks he should be a detective instead.

The other one was a bit easier to approach. The baby of the group: yellow skin, blue hair that matched his eyes, kind smile. Manny, he was called? Smiled a lot more than the first two and was very polite, thoughtful, often the one to drop by and bring the redhead coffee whenever they worked late cases. Empathetic with victims too. Terry liked him.

The last one was the one he’d rather avoid.

Shaggy curly hair, light teal skin, _yellow_ eyes looked like they glowed and he always wore the same thing whenever he dropped by. He had an odd name too. Sherman? Arnold? Right, _Shrignold._ Guy couldn’t get a pop culture reference if it hit him in the face, sometimes told the redhead that he needed to ‘renew the wards’ on his stuff, laughed at the most obscure things and was crazy good at reading emotions.

At the moment, it was already late at night and the redhead was just leaving the station, Terry trailing right behind him, fumbling with his suit as he tried to stretch out a kink in his neck.

He saw all three of the redhead’s friends by their car at the parking lot before he heard them and ducked his head and made his way to his own car. His hands were full with his suit and case at the moment, so he set them on the hood first before picking up his keys.

Enough time for the group’s conversation to get weird.

“So let me get this straight,” Terry hears the redhead say with a tight voice, “The flat just burned down.”

The man glances at the side mirror of his car that reflected the group behind him. The youngest’s sleeves were burnt at the edges.

“We might have accidentally forgot to repaint a ward,” the blue-haired one says, scratches his cheek, “Or two.”

“I don’t go home for two nights and you get found out.”

The gold-eyed one raises a hand, “If it helps, the car’s warded twice as much as before.”

“Robin, we can’t camp out in the car for the rest of our lives.”

Robin? Huh. Last he heard, the guy’s name was Alex.

“Do you think they can find us?” the redhead turns to the last member of the gang.

“Eventually,” Shrignold says, “But, if we get a head start to the next city you were planning to hide in, I can hold them off for maybe a few hours, if I’m lucky, maybe days.”

“You didn’t kill them?”

What?!

“I never thought you’d be one to say that, Harry – ” Terry also knew this man as Lincoln, but apparently, he was in the middle of discovering what may be a huge case, “ – but no, we did not. We don’t have the means to.”

“He did do the druggy thing again,” Manny says. Robin snorts. Shrignold gives all of them a bitchface, “For the last time, it was not a ‘druggy’ thing.”

“It was you going Mother Confessor over them, got it,” Robin snickers and high-fives Manny.

“Again, I do not understand what a Mother Confessor is, and it was just raising the oxytocin levels of their bodies. Were it a human, they would have been bound to me for the rest of their life, enslaved by their chemically-induced emotions, but since they’re not, they’ll be fine in a few days.”

Robin jabs a finger at his direction, “Shrignold, you’ve been with us more than a century. Do you not pay attention to the books I read?”

“I recall being busy training you to get familiar with your abilities and teaching you how to ward, which you still _royally fuck up.”_

“Shrignold, Terry Goodkind. Sword of Truth series. Go to a library, pick a book. Or you can watch Legend of the Seeker if you’re picky.” Then Robin turns to straight into the mirror that Terry’s looking at and the man drops his keys in shock. All Robin does is point to him, “Also Harry, he’s been eavesdropping on us for the past three minutes.”

The rest turn to him and Terry blanches as he turns around to face them. He raises his hands and starts stuttering, which, now that he thinks about it, is something he really shouldn’t have done because not only does it show his guilt, he’s wasting time to get into his car and get out.

Speaking of which.

He immediately turns around, scoops his keys from the ground and moves to unlock his car, but when he looks up, the redhead – Harry – is already across him, leaning casually on the other side of his car with a pitiful look on his face. The keys slip from Terry’s fingers and land with a loud clatter on the ground again.

Harry shakes his head, “You really shouldn’t have bothered to try that.”

Terry takes a shaky step back, then another, and pivots on his heel to run, but comes face to face with the rest of Harry’s friends. Robin raises an eyebrow at him, Shrignold looks like he could care less and Manny pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

“Please don’t kill him,” the youngest says and Terry immediately vouches for that option. Tries to, anyway. The only thing that comes out is incoherent stuttering.

Robin raises a hand again, “Can I suggest memory wipe?”

Manny gives him a confused look, “We don’t know how to do a memory wipe.”

“We can try.”

“How?”

“Harry, do you think you can warp time on a brain?”

“Robin, I could rot this poor man’s brain by accident.”

“Isn’t that win-win?”

“Robin!”

“Okay, I’m joking.” Robin raises his other hand in a sign of surrender as he chuckles. Terry cringes. Rotting his brain wasn’t really…a topic to laugh about. Robin turns to Shrignold, “Hypnotism by oxytocin?”

From behind them, Harry yells, _“Robin!”_

Shrignold and Robin bite their knuckles to stifle their laughter. Manny ignores them and turns his attention to Terry, which the man is sort of thankful for. At least Manny looked like he was the compassionate one.

“I w-won’t tell anyone,” Terry stammers. His voice was almost a whisper, but it’s enough to prompt the other two to shift their focus back on him.

Terry fights back the urge to shrink and straightens, trying to appear taller. Which would have been an easy feat since he was taller than Manny, was around the same height of Robin and Shrignold, but the footsteps behind him were telling him that Harry was right behind him and that man was a six foot plus.

He swallows, “I won’t tell anyone about what I heard tonight, j-just please let me go.”

The others share a look and Robin sighs, shaking his head. Terry’s stomach drops.

“Trust me,” for a moment, Terry thinks Robin’s eyes flashed blue, “Whether or not you tell them anything, they’re not going to let you go.”

 

 

-

Harry has never been one to get up on time, no matter how much he tries. He knows that the adequate time to for him to get up would be six in the morning so that he could do everything without having to rush and potentially forget things in the scramble. Alarms have never woken him up, even when he was kid, and living with Tony and Paige made sure that was out of the question, since Tony hated loud noises in the morning and Paige didn’t have a schedule. Waking her up was synonymous to signing your death warrant, which then again, was sort of done a long time ago when he signed the lease for the house.

Which is why he stares at the clock with wide eyes when he sees that’s woken up at six o’clock on the dot.

He shrugs it off as good luck, for once, because the Law of Averages dictates that things should be going right for them now. In fact, it’s long overdue. So he gets out of bed and prepares himself for work.

Downstairs, Robin is wrapped up in about a million blankets, looking like a murderous cocoon huddled on the couch while Manny’s in the kitchen.

Harry stops and gives the cocoon on the couch a weird look, “O…kay. What’s going on?”

“It’s too cold.”

Harry frowns and turns towards the window, not surprised at the white sheet of snow covering the ground since the news did say that the first snowfall was last night and then turns to Robin.

“So? The heater’s up.”

“Not hot enough.”

“Robin, then it’ll be too hot for us if we turn it up.”

“It’s like negative five degrees Celsius outside,” Robin groans and topples over, landing on his side.

“You’re not even dressed for work, are you?”

A snort, “Is it that obvious.”

“Maybe you’re coming down with something.” Harry crosses the room and sits beside him. Robin scoots to make him room and he places his hand on his friend’s forehead. “Huh. You don’t feel hot.”

“I think I’m fine, everything’s just cold.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it is.”

“I’m not having this conversation early in the morning.”

“You don’t have to, you could just turn the heat up.”

“Not doing that,” he gets up and Robin groans again. “Stop being such a child.”

“I’ll do that the moment you stop being a 6 foot plus monster.”

He kicks the couch the Robin falls off with a grunt.

The shorter of the two pushes himself off the floor and opens his mouth to say something, but doesn’t get there as his face scrunches up and he sneezes.

Harry snickers, “See, you are coming down with something.”

“Alright then. And,” Robin sniffs and grins smugly, “I’m not going to work.”

Harry starts to protest, but Robin just runs up the stairs, laughing.

*

Manny flinches when the speeding truck outside the door zips down the road with a steady honk of its horn.

It’s been two months.

He’s seen his friends flayed alive, but seeing the very person who was doing the flaying being run over and tossed by the vehicle like a limp rag doll, bent at places he shouldn’t be, bleeding to death and twitching wasn’t something he was going to forget anytime soon. Not when he wasn’t ready to see Tony get run over. Not when the image was glued to the back of his eyelids.

It being 2 in the morning wasn’t helping either.

Manny slowly pushes off the blankets and makes his way downstairs as quietly as he can. He fixes himself a mug of hot cocoa and stares at the clock on the wall while he waits for the drink to cool down.

The silence is loud enough for him to hear the steady tick, tick, tick of the hand. If he focuses enough, he thinks he can hear the sound of grinding gears.

But he doesn’t, of course not. He’s not supposed to hear that.

He picks up his mug and goes to the backyard, settling down on the steps with a mug hot enough to burn his fingers off. He doesn’t mind though. Winter nights are nothing to joke about when it comes to temperature and the only source of heat he has is the mug, so he keeps it close. He tries to take a sip, but it burns his tongue and he spits it out to the side immediately.

He hears the door behind him click and creak open.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

He nods, “Yeah.”

Robin, once again wrapped in multiple blankets, sits down beside him and props his elbows on his knees, letting his hands hang forward. Manny scoots a bit to give him more room, “What about you?”

“Too cold.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Didn’t you have the heater on?”

“No. Then it’d be too hot if I turned it on.”

“Have you been sleeping enough?” Manny sets his mug on the floor and turns to him.

“Yeah, why?”

“I’ve heard my friends say that lack of sleep tends to make people temperature sensitive.”

“Huh, I’ve never heard that one,” Robin snorts, “Probably an urban legend. I’ll look it up, though.”

Up ahead, another truck speeds down the road. There’s no honk, just a loud whoosh as it goes 70 per hour without the hindrance of traffic, but Manny’s hands still twitch and he ducks his head.

Robin grimaces and puts an arm around him, murmuring assurances until he stops shaking.

When he does, there’s a pregnant pause and Robin’s not the first one to break it.

“I don’t know,” Manny whispers, “I don’t know! I don’t know why it bothers me so much, I don’t – ” he draws a sharp breath as he raises his head and closes his eyes. “It’s just – I’m scared. I’m scared and I don’t know why.”

He puts a hand to his mouth, “I’m supposed to be glad he’s dead, right? But every time I hear a truck run past, all I can think about is that monster getting run over and being ripped to shreds and I feel like throwing up.”

He shakes again. Curls up. Sobs.

Robin scoots closer and doesn’t say a word.

Harry finds them half an hour later, both staring up at the stars. He says it’s exactly two forty seven, thirty six seconds and counting and they need to get some sleep, especially since Manny hasn’t had a wink of sleep for the past day.

*

“Manny, you really need to get more sleep,” Harry says as he leads the young man from the bathroom to his bed. Manny’s forehead is covered in a thin sheet of sweat and his chest heaves with every short breath he takes. As soon as his head hits the pillow, he curls up on himself as he has another coughing fit.

He rolls onto his side and Harry grabs a trashcan, sliding it beside his bed, but Manny doesn’t throw anything up.

Manny spits into the bin and lays back down on the bed. “It’s just a dry cough so far,” he wheezes, “And I have been trying to get some sleep.”

“Do you want to see a doctor?”

He shakes his head, “It’ll pass.”

Harry sighs, “Alright, just rest up. You’re not going to work tomorrow. I swear this house is getting infected.”

Manny weakly chuckles, “You’re next.”

“You wish.”

“Hah.”

*

Manny doesn’t get any better. Neither does Robin. The more snowstorms hit the city, the more blankets he tries to wrap around himself, complaining that it’s too cold despite the fact that the heater’s working fine and Harry’s never needed more than one sweater to feel comfortable around the house. He’s often holding something hot – a mug of hot coffee, a candle, a lighter, the thermos, one time he was found with his desk lamp on the floor while he had his hands on the bulb. Harry cringed at the thought of how hot the bulb was and how Robin could stand it if he was so temperature-sensitive.

Manny has been confined to the bed for at least a week since he couldn’t walk around so much without passing out. Harry called a doctor and she found nothing wrong with Robin and all Manny had was bad cough. She gave Harry the prescriptions and he thanked her.

Of course, exactly an hour after Manny takes the medication, he starts vomiting.

Harry knows that his body wasn’t supposed to react like that, since he was familiar with the medication from when he was still in high school and often had bad fits of coughing. But Manny’s shaking so badly and tears are pooling at the corner of his already red-ringed eyes.

Currently, all three of them are in the bathroom. Robin’s holding Manny up since his knees aren’t doing their job and Harry’s keeping his hair out of his face and rubbing his back.

Manny retches and throws up again.

“What was in that capsule?” Robin whisper-hisses at the Harry.

“That was just Ambroxol! I never threw up when I took that.”

“Well, he is.” As soon as Robin says that, Manny starts hacking again.

Harry mutters a curse under his breath and resumes rubbing circles on Manny’s back.

Manny heaves and retches.

Robin’s eyes go wide when he notices that the vomit is black.

“Harry,” he doesn’t remove his eyes from the black goop even as Manny continues to throw it up, “You might want to see this.”

“Robin, I’m not going to stare at vomit – ”

“The vomit’s black, Harry.”

Harry frowns at that and leans to side. Just as Robin said, there’s a sticky-looking mass of black goop in the sink. Manny finishes and falls back, breathing hard. Harry catches him just in time.

Robin scrunches up his nose and sneezes. “That does not smell like vomit.”

Harry shoots him a confused look, “How do you know what vomit smells like?”

“Because I’ve been around it for majority of my childhood – my sister was a sickly kid. And that does not smell like sour milk and shame; that smells like uncapped markers.”

Harry stares at the puddle that’s sluggishly moving down the drain and turns to Robin, “You mean like ink?”

“Yeah.”

Both their eyes narrow. Harry turns to Manny, only to find him unconscious. He sighs and faces the sink again, “Do you think that’s going to clog up the pipes?”

*

Thankfully, Manny doesn’t throw up…whatever that was…maybe it was ink, but best not entertain the idea, and his health returns to normal a few days after the incident. Robin doesn’t, but the only problem he has is that the outside is too cold for him and luckily, his boss has allowed him to work from home.

Since Harry’s the only adequately-functioning member of the house, he’s the one who’s walking from the supermarket, with his arms full of bags, towards his car. He sets the bags on the roof first to take out his keys, but they slip out his hands and land with the clink on the asphalt.

He sighs, bends down to pick them up, but a snout makes its way to it first and Harry draws his hand back in shock, keeping it close to him as he scoots back.

The dog rears its head at him, his keys in its mouth.

Harry blinks rapidly as he watches it step towards him and drops his keys in his lap, drool and all. He stares at it for a moment before looking back up at the dog that’s looking up at him, ears perked up. He guesses it looks a bit…excited?

He slowly lifts up a hand, and when the dog doesn’t do anything, he pats its head. Its  tail wags happily.

“Huh,” he scratches behind its ears, “You just wanted to help me with the keys?”

It walks closer to him and licks his hand. Harry chuckles, “Thanks, I guess.”

But he can’t take the dog home, so he sets the groceries in the car, goes to the nearest bakery and spends the rest of the afternoon sitting down in the park feeding himself and the dog. Afterwards, he pats its head one last time and it gives off a sad whine as it watches him leave.

“Sorry, boy, but I don’t think we’re capable of taking care of you,” he says. The dog whimpers. He sighs and doesn’t look back as he makes his way to his car.

*

Exactly eight months, to the second that Tony died, Shrignold arrives at their house. (Harry does not know how he knows the when’s, just that he had a feeling it was the exact time and date that Tony died.) He says that he’s here to warn them about something.

Of course, like any sensible person (who’s met the nuisance), they slam the window close and barricade anything he could possible enter through.

Then Shrignold asks if anything strange had been going on in the house. Things rotting at touch, headaches, unexpected sickness, passing out, odd behavior…

Producing ink from your hands.

All three of them shared a wide-eyed look at that.

“How does he know about that?” Manny hisses.

“He doesn’t,” Robin whispers, “He’s guessing. Besides you threw up ink, not produce it from your hands.”

“Still.”

“Don’t.”

“There is, isn’t there?!” Shrignold yells from the other side of the front door. All three of them shush each other and put a finger to their lips. “I can smell your adrenaline levels kicking up, don’t bother!”

“What?” Harry gives them a confused look, “He can smell adrenaline?”

“That is creepy.”

“Very. Let’s get out of here.”

“If that involves you opening the door, then please!” Shrignold yells.

They all groan.

The monster outside their door doesn’t let up. He keeps talking about how whatever weird stuff is going on with them is because they were ‘inheriting’ Paige and Tony’s abilities that cannot go without a vessel to restrain them, otherwise it would result in chaos. He tells them that there are creatures like Tony, Paige and himself aren’t happy with this development and want to kill the three of them. The more they used these abilities, however involuntarily, the more the others who want their heads on silver platters can detect them.

Harry doesn’t believe a word he says and makes sure the door is kept shut.

Manny looks like he does, but is taking it with a grain of salt and Robin stays silent even if Shrignold has left for half an hour already.

Harry inwardly sighs. They know that they cannot take anything Shrignold said seriously, they cannot trust any of their kind.

So they get on with their lives and never talk about it.

*

Harry counts roughly three months after Shrignold warned them, eleven after Tony’s death, when they are attacked.

It wasn’t at the house either, it was at the supermarket.

They went for a supply run and he was mildly surprised to see that the cashier was different from the regular one, the kid who worked part time to pay for his college funds, but shrugged it off. Maybe the kid had an emergency to attend to and they had to bring in another to take his place. He did say he was graduating this year, so he must have been busy.

The woman was beautiful. Not the type you’d think you would find at the grocery store, but on a Victoria’s Secret magazine or at a fashion show. She was tall, vivid-colored eyes, perfect flowing hair and Harry bet that she could wear the cashier uniform and pose for a photo and people would want to buy the clothes.

Up until she roars at them and her mouth stretches, rips the skin of her cheeks, and bares razor-sharp fangs and leaps over the counter to jump at them. People scream and run, he’s knocked over, Manny tries to kick her off of him, but to no avail and Robin grabs the nearest fire extinguisher and hits her on the side of her head.

She’s flung to the side by the impact and Harry scrambles to his feet. A hand clamps on his ankle and he slips when he tries to run. She drags him back, screeching something incoherent as she stands up. He can feel her hands twitching on his ankles as she sways, possibly from the amount of blood she’s bleeding out her temple.

Manny yells as he jumps at her and tackles her to the floor. She lets go of Harry and he falls back down the short distance from the floor with an ‘oof’.

The woman grabs Manny’s neck and digs her nails into his throat. He chokes, opening his mouth to take in as much air as he can, and tries to pry her hands away from him. She doesn’t budge and Manny holds her wrists tighter.

Robin drags the extinguisher and helps Harry to his feet, checking him over for wounds, before rushing over to where Manny was.

And stops short.

He watches, open-mouthed, as Manny’s fingertips start to go black, before they look like they’re melting, black ooze sliding down the woman’s arms. Their attacker’s skin starts to sizzle and she screams, pulling her hands from Manny’s throat and his chest heaves as he hungrily sucks in air, but his hands never leave the woman’s wrists.

The black liquid continues to run down her arms and she gets to her feet. Manny doesn’t let go and stands along with her as well. The liquid defies gravity and instead of falling to the floor, majority of it quickly snakes up the woman’s arms, up her shoulders, around her neck before it forces itself into her mouth.

The woman gurgles and Manny lets go, backing away wildly, the black ooze from his fingers dripping to the floor and burning the spots of tiles they hit. The stranger claws at her neck as she chokes on the liquid and Robin feels his stomach churning at the sight because not only has Manny possibly almost killed someone (well, she’s still going to die at this rate), but the substance pouring from his hands and poisoning the woman is _caustic ink._

Humans don’t just secrete caustic ink.

He feels someone grab the back of his shirt and pulls him along with Manny as they race out the store and into the car. Harry quickly starts up the vehicle as Robin sits beside him while Manny is at the back, staring at his hands in horror as the liquid continues to fall on his clothes and on the leather seats, burning them.

Harry winces, but floors the gas and drives home as fast as he can.

When they get back, Manny’s hands are thankfully back to normal, albeit stained black, his clothes have burn holes and so do the seats at the back. Robin keeps staring at the marks. Harry drags both of them inside and hopes that the police won’t come looking for them.

*

Manny had gotten sick when they got home and threw up a week’s worth of meals in the bathroom. Afterwards, he went to bed without dinner and has been sleeping like a rock ever since. They hope he still wakes up. It’s a miracle that the police don’t go looking for them and Harry’s not about to look the gift horse in the mouth.

He does find Shrignold on their porch the next day.

The monster turns to him, expression grim, “I was right, wasn’t I?”

Harry exhales loudly and shuts the door behind him before taking a seat beside their guest.

“We need to talk.”

*

A Concept is a being born out of a train of human thought.

They are living, breathing, creatures that do not exist in one plane of existence. They can tamper with each of those planes that they exist in – let’s say for example, mental, emotional, physical, temporal, anything and everything they can touch.

“Like Tulpas,” Manny interrupts. Shrignold pauses and gives a tentative nod, “Sort of like that, I suppose?”

Human thoughts have power, and the Concepts are condensed forms of that heavy magic. Very heavy magic – dating from the very first humans to rise out the ground to the youngest who has grasped the basic building blocks of the universe. It’s ancient magic, one humans aren’t even aware of; such untapped potential, and the older the stronger.

That’s how Shrignold explains it to them, anyway.

And Harry feels like he wants to lie down for a moment. The very thought that the monsters who had tortured him and his friends day in and day out – being rotted alive and resurrected and eventually mutated – the very thought that he was partially responsible to have given them that power. Power that could be used for the greater good and was instead used for personal amusement.

Children, he thinks. Dangerous children. A gifted novice is a dangerous one.

It bit them in the ass, didn’t it?

That much power has to stay controlled, especially since it can affect the universe too. Humans were given authority over the earth after all, and that included even their thoughts. So if a Concept steps down from their position, their abilities are taken from them and without a host, it can go haywire.

“Imagine mystery spots: wormholes, places with no gravity, places where time warps,” Shrignold snaps his fingers, “The Bermuda Triangle. Those are thin patches in the tapestry where magic leaks too strongly.”

When a Concept’s abilities floats without a tether, the entire universe gets sandpapered and affected. Wormholes would be everywhere. Gravity would fail. Interdimensional portals would open in the most random places. People would timejump without any control and possibility mess up the timestream.

So the Voices – the head Concept, Shrignold said –built a system to make sure the balance wouldn’t be overthrown.

The Successor system.

Every time a Concept stepped down from their positions (Fall), a piece of their soul was taken into the loom and given a new, separate physical form. That physical form was a new being, and that being would inherit all the abilities of the previous Concept, which was why they were labelled Successors. The metamorphosis took place in a span of a century, since the Concepts _are_ their powers, they’re one and the same, so extracting it from their souls was a very hard process.

When Paige and Tony died, Creativity and Time unwillingly Fell.

“Haven’t you noticed the news? The radio? Anything?”

Robin chews his lower lip and looks down, “Yeah, there’s – there’s actually a lot of apocalypse talk because the earth’s rotation time is getting inconsistent.”

“I haven’t heard from the radio in a while,” Manny admits.

“It’s just started to right itself,” Shrignold says, “And that’s because their magic is being hosted in you. You’re the new vessels now.”

“Impromptu Successors,” Harry leans back on the couch and looks at the ceiling. He narrows his eyes, “And you said there were others of you who didn’t like our existence.”

Shrignold flinches, steels himself and nods, “Yes.”

Time to starting running.

*

 “Which one of you had an occult phase when they were younger?”

Seeing the Concept pop by at the most random times was starting to be a normal occurrence for the past few months, and even though Harry shouldn’t make it seem like he was welcome, they’ve got no one else to go to for help. Even if Shrignold’s reasons still aren’t clear, they’ll work with him when it looks like a clear coast and if it’s too vague, drop everything and run.

Speaking of running.

The reason they haven’t gone out of the house yet was because they didn’t have enough money and they also didn’t know where to go. Just around the country would be nice, but would they be hopping expensive flat after expensive flat out of paranoia? No, they needed a plan. And they needed to stay safe. Running blindly could get them killed.

As it is, Shrignold’s carrying several dog-eared arm-thick books with him.

Manny shakes his head. Harry shrugs.

“Not me,” Robin calls out from the kitchen.

Shrignold stops and turns to the direction where the voice came from, muttering, “Seriously, how does he do that?”

“I know exactly the temperature of the house with everyone in it!” Robin yells over the whistle of the kettle, “And I notice the steady rise of the temperature of food cooking or appliances being used, but when there’s a sudden increase to the heat, that’s obviously another person in the house. And you’re not whispering either!”

It’s a few seconds before the kettle’s shrieks turn to a low whine. “Huh,” Shrignold clicks his tongue, “That’s actually impressive.”

“He’s got a thing for applying everything he learns,” Manny snorts.

“Good,” the newcomer walks over and sets the load he’s carrying on the coffee table, “Because you’re going to learn to ward the house.”

Harry looks at the books with an expression that’s one part wary and two parts curious. His eyes trail to Shrignold’s hand that still hasn’t left the coffee table. There’s a gash that looks like it extends up to his forearm, which is covered by his sleeves.

“You’re bleeding.”

The man immediately retracts his arm and rests it on his lap, bringing up his knees to his chest, effectively hiding the injured limb.

Harry repeats his statement louder, “You’re bleeding.”

Shrignold glares at him before he looks away and huffs, “I haven’t exactly been a welcome party back home since I first visited here. I’m not familiar with which local human libraries had these books so,” he shrugs, “I stole them from back home.”

Harry stiffens. He swallows thickly before extending his hand. Shrignold tries to sink further into the couch.

He half-stands and grabs the other’s injured arm, ignoring the “Hey!” he gains from the action, sits back down with Shrignold awkwardly leaning forward and lifts up the rest of the sleeve.

“Ohdearlord.”

The laceration runs up Shrignold’s entire forearm and half of it is caked in blood. Harry only realizes that the cloth he’s keeping up is stiff from dried blood. There’s a chunk of meat missing from the Concept’s bicep, edges ragged like a bite mark. There are some burns near his wrist.

He lets go and rolls up the sleeve of the other arm and as expected, it’s just as burned and bloody.

Shrignold pulls back his arms and rolls his sleeves down, “I’ll heal.”

Harry raises an eyebrow.

“Trust me. I think I’ve been through worse – it’s not exactly reliving a nightmare.”

Yeah, he knows exactly how that feels. And he also knows Shrignold’ll heal in a few hours, so he leaves it alone and picks up the top book in the pile.

The maroon cover is faded and dusty (not to mention bloodstained) with the drawing of a gold circle that had several curved symbols inside. Manny leans over to look at it as he flips to a random page filled with even more confusing symbols.

“We’re not going to start learning Latin are we?”

Shrignold snorts, “No, you’re not going to learn spells or exorcisms, so no Latin needed. Oh wait, banishing spells, so you might need to learn Latin.” He arranges the rest of the books in a line, “Now get your red markers and we’ll put a trap on the doorframe.”

*

Harry’s so relieved that the reason they move ten years later isn’t because they’re attacked, but because the neighbors might sense something was up since they weren’t aging. But, there was also the weight on his conscience when he realized that the reason that didn’t happen was because their resident butterfly humanoid was a very vigilant fighter. Which was also why he showed up at their doorstep bloody half the time.

He usually had a shit-eating grin from the adrenaline high, though, so that was cool.

Unfortunately, since the money they’d saved up over the years would only be enough for gas, food during the trip, first two rent payments, and then a few weeks’ worth of food until they can find a job, Robin suggested they do credit card scams. Harry was opposed to it, Manny hesitated at first, but thinking practically of it, they did need to survive. So they went along with it, despite all of them knowing it was all wrong.

True enough, finding a new place to live in and a job was a hassle, and they did run out of their honest money. Harry begrudgingly went shopping that day. On the bright side, they found a flat.

At the moment, he is painting the Key of Solomon on their living room floor (he’ll clean it up when they move again) while the others were unpacking their boxes. Once he finishes his work (all those symbols in the inner circle were a pain) and let the pain dry, he covers it up with the carpet. No need to be kicked out for being mistaken for Satanists.

Even if Harry didn’t have an occult phase or was interested in the supernatural at any time of his life, warding was a skill he’d honed for the past ten years due to surprise visits they’d get from their self-proclaimed assassins and the occasional jumps at the supermarket or the car.

His car was full of traps. Another reason why he wasn’t going to sell it no matter how outdated it got and how high the cost would be if someone did buy it. It was also their only constant home.

After a week of someone attempting to set their house on fire, blow up their car and chase after them in the middle of a crowded street with knives at the ready, Shrignold taught them how to tone down their abilities. Now, Harry could only check the time when he wanted to, same with Robin’s temperature sensitivity and Manny’s tendency for turning water into ink. They also hadn’t gotten any new abilities to worry about so that was good. Keep a low profile and they’d be fine.

Robin changes their legal names and it takes a while to adjust to being called an alias, but they manage. They all get jobs, they ward the house, Shrignold checks up on them from time to time and they pretend they’re normal.

If they forget that they aren’t, then it’s all good.

Until of course, he gets home and has to break a terrible, terrible development to the others.

His voice is shaking when he speaks,

“Paige is back.”

*

Three days later, Robin comes home with a twelve pack, and since Shrignold’s around, all three of them give him an incredulous stare.

“So,” the grin he has tips off that he’s a little buzzed, “Tony’s back too.”

*

After nursing a hangover for a good part of the next morning, they spend the rest of the day gathered around the living room, squatting in a circle a good distance away from where Harry had drawn a trap in case Shrignold gets stuck.

Manny still had his head in his hands, groaning every now and then.

“Why are they back?” Robin voices the question out first. Shrignold doesn’t say anything and his eyes are doing the flickering thing again. Robin turns to Harry and he shrugs, although his expression was concerned.

On one hand, this meant trouble, but on the other…it could be good news.

“Do you think they can, like, reabsorb their magic or something?”

“They would have done it by now,” Shrignold murmurs, but his eyes are still glazed over. “A Concept’s magic settles back to its original host faster than the Successor, and you said they were both well over twenty years. If that was the case, they would have regained their abilities a long time ago…” he trails off and blinks, straightening as his eyes clear up, “I’m sorry, what was I saying?”

“You said something about a Concept’s magic settling easier into its original host,” Robin repeats, “Were you not supposed to say that?”

“I don’t know – I,” he presses his fingers to the side of his head, “It’s just that it feels like something’s burning in the back of my head and, I swear to you, I do not remember how I knew that information about the magic settling into its original host.”

“What’s up with that? Repressed memories?”

Shrignold chuckles, “Impossible. I remember everything I’ve been through, even the painful ones.”

They fall back into discussion after that, concluding that Paige and Tony are in fact, humans (for now or for forever, they don’t know), have no recollection of anything from when they were Concepts and are still massive grade A pricks.

Well, at least there was another bottle of tequila in the kitchen.

*

“You open the door.”

“No, you do it.”

“No, _you.”_

“You.”

“No, fuck you.”

_“Fuck you,_ asshole – with a cactus. Now go open the door – ”

Harry is very aware that they are two over-forty-looking-twenty grown men and that they are also huddled in the corner of the room – him wielding a ladle and wearing a polka dot print apron while Robin’s with a boot polish and brush in his hands, in a wax-stained apron that gives him a lot more seriousness factor than Harry – arguing who is going to open the front door when they don’t have visitors nowadays.

It’s not that they’re scared. It’s just that they are really sure that whoever’s on the other side of the door is going to be annoying.

It’s either salesmen or…someone else. They’d shoot both all the same.

“I’m holding _two things,_ Harry – ”

“Then put the brush down, Robin.”

“Don’t you – ”

“I said _put the fucking brush down, Robin and answer the door.”_

“ _Jeez,_ alright. Fine. Don’t get your mop hair in bleached knots, jackass, I’m getting the door.”

He places both items that he has on the nearest table and crosses over, twisting the knob and pulls –

The hinges snap audibly and the screws fall down to the floor. Robin panics a bit but catches the door just in time with his other hand before it crushes him. Harry jaw drops with a metallic clank before he realizes that the clank was actually by the ladle. Speaking of which, how’d it get on the floor.

Shrignold stands in the doorway with wide, unblinking eyes that dart back and forth between Harry and Robin, “Okay. Does the room need a new repair job, or…?”

“Just get inside before I decide to flatten you with this.”

The Concept ducks as he slips past Robin and follows Harry into the living room. Robin tries to fit the door back into its place and it falls over. He picks it up and lets it lean on the wall instead before joining his friends – taking a quick reroute to place Harry’s forgotten ladle in the sink – and sits beside Harry, Shrignold across them.

From the bathroom, there’s a shriek, “Oh my _shit!”_

“He’s learned a lot of cursing over the years,” Shrignold tuts as all three of them turn to where the sound had originated.

Harry shoots a glare at Robin, “Unsurprising.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the only one.”

He doesn’t make it to the last word before there’s a thud and another loud curse. And the faucet sounds like it’s running strong.

Harry sighs, “Manny, get over here.”

“I’ll be right – okay, just fit,” another series of pinball noises accompanied with glass breaking follows and Manny finishes it off with a “ _FUCKING HELL!”_

“Manny, leave it!”

“This shit is going to burn through the floors!”

Robin pinches the bridge of his nose , “Manny, just…leave it alone for now. It’ll stop if you’re distracted.”

A few minutes later, Manny stomps as loudly as possible and plops down the couch next to the Robin with a deep scowl on his ink-smeared face. The faucet still sounds like it’s running.

Shrignold takes a few seconds to look at all of them, “So,” he frowns a bit, “What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem?” Manny, surprisingly, is the first to hiss and claw into his own hair out of frustration, _“Everything is the problem.”_

“Okay, how long does it usually take for the Successor-ability-absorption thing to kick in?” Robin asks.

“Normally, after the first decade or so.”

“First decade,” Robin turns to Harry. The man nods, “We’re a few days from Tony’s death anniversary.”

Shrignold clicks his tongue, “You did have a quick spurt at the beginning – especially the attack at the supermarket episode.”

“I thought we wrote that off as the fight or flight instincts taking over,” Manny says.

He nods, “Yes, but still, that was a hard feat to pull off since majority of you was still human.”

“Ah,” Harry closes his eyes and forces a smile, “We’re getting mutated, aren’t we?”

Shrignold sighs, “I thought you had come to terms with that a long time ago.”

“Not if we didn’t say it out loud.”

Another sigh. Shrignold stays silent for a moment before turning back to them, “What’s wrong this time?”

“I’ve been turning water into ink lately and I can’t get it to stop,” Manny says. True to his word, hands are stained black.

Harry fishes a pen knife from his pocket, extends a forearm and drags the blade on the skin in a straight line. Everyone else winces. Blood wells up.

Littered with golden flecks.

Robin points up the lightbulb on the ceiling. “Check this out,” he snaps his fingers and the glass bursts, sparks raining down on them and the rest of them flinch.

There’s a pregnant pause before Shrignold raises both hands. “First of all, I would like all of you to stop flamboyant displays of magic, just please tell me what’s wrong,” he glares at each of them, “And secondly, keep the brats – you know who I mean – away from here for as long as you can, because I have a feeling they’ll be living with you no matter how much you try to keep them away. Keep them away because I want to help you control your magic to keep you in hiding and from hurting yourselves, and I am not stepping foot inside this flat with Paige and Tony around.”

“Shrignold, they’re human now.”

“You three were full humans once too. Who dumped water on an outlet and made an entire school short-circuit again?”

*

Of course nothing ever works out for them. Nothing ever has, and it wasn’t going to start now.

Tony and Paige move into the flat with them and Shrignold doesn’t make any appearance for the time the entire time they’re around. Harry starts carrying sharpies and an already written down banishing sigil, made with his blood since that was a requirement, on paper folded neatly into his jacket pocket since he can see eyes that definitely don’t belong to humans nearly everywhere. Watching him while he’s waiting for the traffic to move so he can cross the road. At the supermarket. At the park. At work.

Tony gets leukemia.

Paige gets twitchy. She starts to get unfocused, eyes going blank at dinner, at work, and it gets more frequent. Then she starts passing out randomly. Even if she tries to get to her room as fast as she can when she feels light-headed, Harry notices and he knows something’s up and it’s big. He hopes she’s not sick as well.

It’s even worse.

Tony dies, and at that exact moment, Paige remembers. Everything.

And she’s angry. Tony devastated was silent, brooding and careless, but Paige – Paige is an unstoppable ball of pure rage. She doesn’t want to be pitied, she’s impatient and she’s proud to the point where she shoves all of them away because she thinks she doesn’t need anything, without realizing that being in a human body is actually a lot more work than it is.

“Robin, she’s _human_!” Harry scolds him a few hours after they’ve tranquilized her and were there to bring her food, “You can’t just twist her arms and expect them to bend accordingly. Be careful, she’s not immortal anymore.”

Robin looks away, but he can still see that _bloodlust_ in his eyes and Harry pushes down the suspicion he’s been trying to stamp down for years. Because he knows. Robin’s discrete, but when his eyes change colors just like _hers_ did, he thinks they have more alike than they realize and red’s been a frequent color in Robin’s irises lately.

“I know, alright.” He huffs, “I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“Just…” Harry sighs, “Just be less rough next time. You almost broke her arms.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who almost broke her arms; she tried to break them herself!”

He’s thankful when all the voice contains is the usual tendency of a child to push the blame on others and not the rage he really doesn’t want to confront. Harry opens the door to Paige’s room and pokes his head in.

She’s awake, and weak as she might be, glares as much as she can. “Get out.”

“Paige – ”

“I said _get out,_ Harry.”

He ducks his head and closes the door.

*

“Robin, go after her!”

The stairs almost collapse under his friend’s weight when he races up them, each step thundering with the amount of effort he’d putting to run faster, but he manages to get upstairs without breaking them. He’s always been the slowest runner out of the three of them, and Manny overtakes him.

He hears a crash and an angry yell. Minutes later, they arrive at Paige’s room, he at Manny’s heel.

His eyes dart from Paige, who’s being pinned down by Robin with a knee on her back, to the small black shape on the floor, a few feet from them.

It’s his gun.

His stomach churns hot.

He runs forward and kicks it further away. It hits the wall and Paige tries to crawl over to it . Manny rushes over to push down her shoulders. She roars and kicks her legs up.

“What were you _doing?!_ ” Harry rounds on her, horror and fury in his eyes –and he can feel them heat up that for a moment he thinks they might be changing colors too – but Paige is undeterred and she snarls, “What do you think?! Trying to die!”

He tries not to flinch, “Why – why would you even do that?”

She starts laughing hysterically and the confusion makes Manny and Robin loosen their hold on her. As soon as they do, she pulls her arms back and tries to push herself off the ground, but slips. Robin moves to kneel beside her as she lies on her side.

She laughs and fixes him a grin, “I remember, you know. I _remember.”_

The uncomfortable hot pool in Harry’s stomach burns further and he frowns. This should be impossible. Why now? Why couldn’t she remember all those years ago, why now – and this definitely meant danger, but as far as he knew, she was still human. Still, a few bindings might be in order…

“I remember the first time I ripped your heart out from your chest and it was still beating. I remember the time I fed you cake with human organs for your birthday.”

He feels his heart start to pump faster and he takes a few steps back. Paige grabs Robin by the tie and hisses, “I remember your _dreams.”_

Harry feels his mind stutter.

What?

As in like, his ambitions?

“You’re back,” Robin’s eyes are wide – fearful wide, and Harry immediately knows that it’s not ambitions. Paige tries to strangle him and Manny pulls her away. Robin rubs at his throat, “Welcome back, bitch.”

“Glad to be back. How are the murders coming up?”

Murders?!

He closes his eyes, schools his expression and pushes his horrible thoughts into the back of his mind. That could wait. They needed to sort it out in private too.

“Wait, why would you want to kill yourself? Is that – even Tony didn’t go this far when you died first!”

When she reaches for the gun, he steps in the way.

“How long did he last?”

Well, that came out of nowhere.

“What?”

“How long until he died – the first time?”

When he blinks, he can see fast-forwarded images of a truck speeding, Tony being hit, thrown aside like a useless rag; can hear the sound of a horn, bones breaking and too short, ragged breaths from lungs pooling with blood.

Push it out.

“A f-few months.”

“A few – why just a few months?”

Oh, if only you knew. Did you? Did you know _how much he loved you how he wouldn’t eat how he wouldn’t sleep how he would stare blankly into space how he would move around like he used to but without any sense of purpose the coffee maker the clocks his sword **did you know, Paige?**_

“He didn’t kill himself, if that’s what you’re asking.” He might as well have. “He…got run over by a truck. Hit and run.”

He can see the gears in Paige’s head turn as her imagination gives her the needed images. Does she see the broken limbs? The red and gold galaxies of blood? Does she know their metallic smell?

“Why’d he get run over?”

Easy question.

Robin’s the one who answers, “Because of you.”

*

“We need to talk.”

Paige has barricaded herself in her room again. After they had hidden all the knives and the chemicals, they piled into the car and drove off until they were by the port. Harry’s at the wheel. Robin’s not in his usual seat – beside him – and was sitting with Manny in the back instead. The youngest stays silent and keeps his head ducked.

When nobody makes any noise, Harry turns around, “Robin, we need to talk.’

The man is looking outside, “About what?”

“What was she talking about?”

“What was who talking about?”

“Robin!” He sees Manny shrink but he doesn’t stop, “You know exactly what I mean!”

“There is nothing to talk about, alright?!” Robin finally snaps his attention to him and his eyes flash gold for a moment before settling on a dull rusty bronze.

“You wouldn’t get so upset if there really was nothing!”

Robin scoffs, opens the door, slams it close and stalks outside. Harry growls and chases after him, Manny close behind, but without as much force as the other two.

“Robin!” Harry speeds up to catch up to him, “Robin, what is going on? What does she know that we don’t?”

“Nothing!”

As soon as he’s within arm’s reach, Harry grabs Robin’s shoulder, spins him around – “Harry, there’s noth – ” and lets his fist connect with the shorter man’s jaw.

Robin falls to the ground, hitting his head in the process, with eyes wide and Harry can’t seem to bring himself to care about the injury he’s just caused. Robin slowly brings up a hand to his mouth, feeling the tender, bruised skin and leans to the side to spit out a mouthful of blood.

“What the _hell?!”_

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed, Robin,” he clenches his fist but doesn’t move on the urge to land another blow, “I knew something was up years ago when you started tolerating Paige’s presence. And I’m pretty sure the crusted blood under your nails that one time wasn’t from cleaning the living room.”

“They deserved it, alright?!” Robin gets to his feet. Harry’s chest feels tight. “Mother of _fuck,_ Harry, you have no idea what she let me do and when I finally got to clean up the mess, a little blood shed was a small price to pay.”

“What?” Harry’s face contorts, “You think…” words are failing him. His mind sputtering out 50 thoughts at once and he can’t sort them out. “You think killing people is a small price to pay?” he starts, “What the actual fuck, Robin?”

“They were criminals! Murderers, rapists!”

“Even so – you kill them in cold blood, you’re no better than them.”

“Who are you to tell me what to do, huh?” Robin steps forward until they are only centimeters apart and glares up at Harry, “Do you have any idea what I’ve had to go through night after night of nightmares? Were you there when I started questioning everything I thought was right? Were you there when I thought about drowning myself?”

“You could have told us!”

“And what would you have done, Harry?! Give me a pep talk? It’s going to be okay? Because it’s been a very long time and none of it ever has been. Nothing can fix the deep shit we’re in now and you’re also useless – ”

Harry grabs him by the collar and hisses, “Say that again, I fucking dare you.”

“Harry!” Manny pulls him by the back of his shirt and puts his hands on both their shoulders to keep them apart.

“Manny, stay out of this.”

“No, Harry, calm down.”

“Manny –”

“I said _calm down_ and look at what you just did.”

Manny points to Robin’s collar which is – Harry’s eyes widen, “Shit.”

Robin looks down as well and picks at his collar – “Ohshit” – or what’s left of it, anyway.

Robin’s jacket is littered with dust and most of his collar has decayed to nothing; the edges of the remaining cloth were thin, brownish and stiff. Harry’s eyes meet Manny’s and the younger man’s expression falls to pity.

Harry stares at his hands, horrified.

Manny claps him on the back. “We need to get home,” he says, “We need to call Shrignold and we need to get this under control before you hurt someone or yourself.”

“Yeah,” Harry absentmindedly mutters, eyes never leaving his hands as Manny steers them to the car, “Yeah.”

*

He has to leave the house for a week after everything he touches starts to rot. Manny goes with him since he can’t do anything by himself anymore, and they’d have easily solved this problem if Shrignold was willing to step inside the flat, but with Paige around, he’s scarce. They leave the place to Robin, Manny telling him that he’s to keep Paige from killing herself and to not get into any more fights with her.

Harry still hasn’t talked to Robin.

“Stop being so tense,” Shrignold stabs the rotting apple in his hands with a stick and tosses it off the bridge they’re standing on, “The more you let your emotions get the best of you, the harder it’s going to be to control it.”

He sighs and turns to sit down on the railing. He’d bury his face in his hands if he could, but for now, he has to let them hover awkwardly.

Shrignold’s eyes scan the area, “You know we can’t be here for long or they’ll notice, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, “Isn’t there an easier way to get this under control?”

“No.”

“There is, isn’t there?”

“Yes, but you are not going to live on a crutch for the rest of eternity, so we’re going to practice.”

Harry’s brow furrows, “You say eternity like I’m going to be stuck like this forever.”

“You might,” Shrignold shrugs, “Best to be prepared.”

He lets out a dry laugh, “You could always admit that you think the situation is hopeless. I can take it. I’ve been alive for like, almost a century now.”

He can’t place the look the Concept gives him. His eyes are narrowed and starting to flicker again, and his expression shifts from angry to pitying to sad. Shrignold whips out a marker from his pockets and crouches down to draw a makeshift circle around where he and Harry and standing, then scribbles symbols on the asphalt and up to the railings.

Once he finishes the warding, he recaps the marker, tucks it into his pocket and leans on the railing with his arms crossed, “You know what I’ve always admired about humans?”

“Did you just set up a quick ward to go on a rant and you’re not willing to move this elsewhere?”

The Concept ignores that, “It’s your stubbornness. No matter what the world throws at you, you just seem to – ” he snaps his fingers “ – stand up and keep at it. I have seen wars destroy your civilizations, but look at where you are now.”

“Yeah, we’re still working on one final war to end us all.”

“I am trying to give an encouraging speech here,” Shrignold flicks his nose and he hisses, raising a hand to rub at it before remembering he can’t. “And I would very much appreciate it if you stopped being so sassy and pessimistic.”

He snickers.

“The point , Harry, is that I don’t think your situation is hopeless. Not even close. You have learned what no human was even thought capable of – you’re good with Concept magic even if you weren’t born with it. You’re living day in and day out even when you don’t want to. You’re strong, Harry,” his voice drops in volume, “Don’t start losing hope now.”

Harry gives him an incredulous look, “Why would you, of all people, start trying to encourage me when all the rest of your kind has done is try to kill me?”

The corners of Shrignold’s lips turn up. He bites down a laugh and looks up the darkening sky. Doesn’t say anything for a few minutes.

When he does, his voice is a whisper, “I never told you why I started to help you, right?”

That catches his attention. Harry shifts to get a good look at him in the dim light, “Yeah?”

Shrignold draws in a breath and it turns to mist when he exhales, “A long time ago, there was a Concept who Fell.

“Of course, to inherit their magic, a Successor was born to them. Now, this Concept, they raised their Successor as their own child, loved them so much that they were inseparable. The child was raised on Earth so that they would learn and observe the humans, and because of superstition, this pair was often chased out by villagers,” he grins to himself, “But they didn’t mind. They moved from town to town, enjoyed themselves as they watched the humans go about their festivals and celebrations, and they watched each other’s backs, this mother and child duo.

He pauses for a bit. “You know that majority of the pureblood Concepts don’t appreciate the Succesors.” Harry nods. He continues, “One night, the Successor child was kidnapped and his mother wore herself out trying to look for him.

“Days later, the mother’s sister delivered her child’s body to her. Dead.”

Harry closes his eyes and clenches his fist.

“The corpse was mutilated horribly: limbs bent at odd angles, jaw and an ear ripped off, plenty of burn marks,” he looks down, “The mother was livid. She made a deal with a very powerful reaper to borrow their sword, which they say can kill Concepts, and stormed the realm to look for her child’s killer. She found them, but they offered her another deal.

“They would bring back the Successor, but she was to cease her rampage and child was to have no recollection of anything prior to their resurrection.”

“What’d the mom do?”

“She was desperate,” Shrignold turns to him, “She said yes. She lost all of her magic to her child, who believed they never had a parent.”

Harry chews the inside of his cheek, “Why are you telling me this?”

“That’s an old story from back home. Some say it’s true, others say it’s just something to scare Successors to never wander off from their parents. Some also say that the method of wiping the Successor-in-the-story’s memories was by ripping out his soul, taking out all the pieces that carried memories and destroying them, before mending the blank pieces together and stuffing them back into the host.” Shrignold raises a finger, “Now, back home, I have...I think only one friend.”

“Unsurprising.”

“Hah. This friend is one of those who think that the story is true,” he says, “They also say they know exactly who the mother in the story is.”

“Who?”

“Do you remember a little old lady in your neighborhood once? Doris?”

Harry leans back. “Doris?!” he throws his head back and laughs, “Okay, I get that she’s a little too sweet sometimes, but Doris as a Concept? I thought you guys lived for like, thousands of years, Doris is like ninety plus or something.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Have you ever heard of her death, Harry?”

He pauses. Come to think of it, “No.” And he’d rather not. She was a good woman.

“She didn’t seem to be showing signs of limited movement, did she? Back pains? Arthritis? Memory loss?”

No. She had the best memory he’d ever seen and he knew Tony and Paige. That was saying something.

“So…Doris is – was a Concept?”

His companion shrugs again, “That’s what Humour says.”

“Huh.” Well, it kind of fit. If he thought about it, she didn’t look like she aged further. “So…who’s the Successor?”

At that, Shrignold gives a little chuckle and points to himself.

“No.”

“That’s what I tried to tell ‘em,” he says. His eyes are the only source of light they have aside from the street lamps, and their glow dims a bit, “Told them I couldn’t remember having a mother and that it was absurd, and Humour jokes a lot, it’s in their job description. But…believe me, they didn’t seem like they were joking. They were persistent about it for _years._ ”

Harry’s frown deepens, “And what? You’re…looking for proof? Or want us to look for proof as payment for your help, is that it?”

“No. If I’m being honest, I don’t want to look for proof, Harry,” he shifts, “Say I do find proof that I have a mom and she’s been right under my nose the entire time, what am I gonna do? Hey, turns out I’m your kid and I can’t remember anything, sorry about that? I don’t even think I _want_ a mother.

 

“I’m scared.”

 

Harry doesn’t say anything to that. Concepts are proud creatures, that he knows too well and even if he and Shrignold have a brittle friendship going on, he knows it takes a lot to admit that he’s scared.

“I admit I do want to know the truth, whether I really am a Successor whose story turned into an urban legend back home.” He sniffs, “And if that’s really the case…I guess my first order of business is to find all those missing pieces of my soul.”

“So is that why you’re here? You want us to find that? You’re looking for your shredded soul?”

Shrignold raises his head and the glow in his eyes grows lighter. His voice doesn’t break when he speaks and Harry can _feel_ the determination seeping off of him. “Hope,” he says, “That’s what I’m looking for. And out of every human I’ve seen, I’ve seen a lot of that in you. That’s what I’m here for. That’s why I chose to help you. If you and your friends can plow through anything, well…what’s to say I can’t fix myself?”

He really shouldn’t be the poster boy for that. He’s committed suicide once and was brought back, drowned himself in alcohol more times than he could count, and at the moment, he was thinking about how Robin was right and how worthless he was that he couldn’t help Robin out the deep end.

But hope.

Here was a creature supposedly thousands of years old who found hope just _watching_ him day in and day out trying to survive.

“That’s really admirable, Shrig,” he gets off the rail and places his hand on Shrignold’s head on purpose, thanking his height advantage. “Ohcrap-” Shrignold immediately ducks his head when Harry’s hand comes in contact with his hair and he takes several steps back.

“Don’t do that. Also – ew, don’t call me that. Ever.” His eyes dart up as he ponders on something, “…Harold.”

Harry winces, “Okay, that is disgusting. That _sounds_ disgusting. Eugh. Never.”

“Never.”

“Agreed.”

There’s a second of silence before both of them burst in laughter. Harry’s hands still hover in the air since he doesn’t trust himself to clutch his stomach and not rot his clothes, but Shrignold’s wiping a tear from the corner of his eyes. He motions for Harry to follow him down the bridge, “Come on, Manny’s probably been waiting in your car for five hours now.”

*

His head is throbbing and his temple is itchy. He catches the faint scent of iron and his jaw feels like it was hit with a bat. Which it probably was. Harry blinks as he realizes that he is not in his office, nor at home, and he can’t make anything out in the dim lighting.

The room is dark. The bag over his head smells and if he wasn’t bound, he could easily rot through the rope and the chair and escape.

Unfortunately, he _is_ bound and he can’t see anything.

Harry bows his head so that he could focus on getting as much information as he can. His internal clock takes a few minutes to right itself, flipping through time zones before it settles on the correct one and he marks that it is 1:46 P.M. He’s been out for more than six hours. How, he doesn’t know, a blow to the head shouldn’t have knocked him unconscious that long (should it?), but even so, he thinks they might have used tranquilizers. Or more binding spells.

He works his mouth to spit out the cloth stuffed in it and moves to make the gag slip off. Hands next. He tries to wriggle his fingers, but he can’t feel them. He focuses again and thinks back to all the afternoons spent in the backyard with red markers and ancient books scattered around them.

_“A binding spell done right is incredibly powerful – multiple binding spells can cause the target to become completely immobile.”_

Multiple binding spells, then. He tries to list them off the top of his head: _blood-binding spell, simple invocation of a creature’s true name, Key of Solomon, iron or silver with markings on them, Enochian sigils, simple pentacle ._

There was a lot more drawing involved, but those are the ones that stand out for now. Harry takes a deep breath and thinks.

The bag smells bad, really bad, but he can smell the general scent of the room through it. It’s damp, rusty and it makes his nose burn. Urine, probably. So somewhere unmaintained, probably unchecked for years. Maybe the owners didn’t give a damn. He sneezes.

Ugh, this stuff was supposed to be Robin’s turf.

Still, he’s lived a long time with the guy, he should have picked up stuff from him.

There’s a faint hum from above him. The kind that he usually heard from agonizingly slow ceiling fans with heavy metal propellers. It sounded far up the ceiling. Possibility of the place being underground is cut down; perhaps a warehouse then. The chair is hard and doesn’t feel like it could hold his weight. Thin seat, might be metal.

Definitely warehouse.

_“There is a hundred year period for the abilities to be passed on from Concept to Successor. During that period, the Successor is mortal. Theoretically, during that time period, you would also carry your mortality – which is possibly the reason why you’re being hunted while you’re vulnerable – and your humanity.”_

_“It wouldn’t clash, would it?”_

_“Judging by the fact that Manny got sick when he started vomiting ink? It clashes. The Concept part would attempt to squash down your humanity and vice-versa. The longer time passes, the more it takes over your human side.”_

_Shrignold leans forward and folds his hands before resting his chin on them._

_“The key to controlling your magic is to squash the Concept magic with your humanity,” he says, “That’s also the key to hiding your magic signatures in public when you’re too picky to be inked with wards.”_

_“We can do that?”_

_“While it’s still early. If we pass the fifty year period, it’ll be harder. We need to take advantage of these early times to hide you if you want to have a life as normal as possible.”_

Harry does a few mental calculations. Forty one years. He breathes a sigh of relief. Nine more years and he’ll have to start painting himself symbols with sharpies or get tattoos. He doesn’t like the second option very much. Needles have always made him uncomfortable.

Here was a theory for Concept philosophers. If binding spells meant to trap beings of pure energy didn’t work on humans, would a Halfling be trapped or able to get through? Or would they only be slightly limited since the traps only worked on the Concept part of them?

He closes his eyes again and imagines the golden flecks in his blood disappearing into nothing, imagines that he cannot feel exactly where the sun is and tell what time it is, imagines that he cannot feel the borrowed energy flowing through his veins. Put your mind into it. Control it. Overpower it.

He wiggles his fingers and they move.

Harry opens his eyes and grins.

He jerks himself forward and the chair moves a bit. Ugh, the back of the chair scrapes against his arms, making it feel like it was burning. Still, he grits his teeth and continues to move forward until he can hear a steady high-pitched humming. A few more jolts and suddenly, something cold washes over his body from head to toe. Harry feels his shoulders relax and he sighs again. He’s out the trap.

He bends his hands so that his fingers can touch the rope and he rots it. He pulls the bag off his head and rots the shackles off his feet.

Harry turns around to check the trap and raises an eyebrow.

Painted on the floor is a Key of Solomon that’s glowing blue, on the ceiling is the Star of David made out of metal (how did they even manage that) and he was right – he’s in a warehouse. He checks his hands to see that there are faint blue, thread-thick loops around his wrists. Binds. Tethers, not necessarily magic restraints. There really is a blood bind involved.

There’s a loud crash outside, followed by an enraged cry. He sees the light drifting through the crack under the door flicker.

“Damn it,” he mutters under his breath and rots the hinges off the door. He pulls it off its place by a crack and checks to see if anyone’s nearby. The coast is clear and he takes it off, going outside, ducking, and walks as quiet as he can on the balls of his feet.

Another crash down the hallway and he presses his back to the wall, holding his breath. He braces himself when the footsteps get closer.

He makes a sharp turn as the person does as well, into his hallway – he nearly bumps into Robin and quickly turns around, putting down his hands that were ready to rot someone.

“What are you doing here?” he hisses. Manny’s right behind Robin, both of them look disheveled, clothes torn at the edges and bloody. “Please tell me that’s not your blood.”

“Shut up,” Robin snaps at him.

There’s a yell behind them and they turn to the sound. Manny pushes both of them forward, “Come on, they’re coming.”

“You came here to rescue me?” Harry sprints past the room he was being held in, the others right behind him.

Robin scoffs, “Of course we did – turn left here, the stairs are right there. Then the entrance.”

Harry does as he’s told and he spots the stairs leading down to the ground floor and out the warehouse. They speed up as they near the stairs when an unseen force suddenly rips through the air and pins them flat on the ground, immobile.

“What the hell?!”

“Manny!”

“What is going on?”

“There they are!” someone shouts. Harry hears Manny cry out but he can’t turn his head to see what’s happening.

A man laughs, “What a pleasant surprise, the entire party came along.”

Harry is being pulled up by the back of his collar and turned so that he could see Manny being held up by a man with bright red hair, enough to rival his own. The yellow eyes and tall height, not to mention that flickers of multiple limbs with blades for arms, are a dead giveaway that he’s not human.

Robin tries to squirm free from the one holding him up, but they are still unable to move and their captors are too tall.

Why weren’t Shrignold and Paige this tall?

“Do you always have color codes?” Robin asks. Harry bites down the urge to laugh. He was right – the one holding Manny wore mostly red, matching their hair and the one holding Robin was wearing blue, matching their hair. He wonders what the one holding him looks like.

There’s a chuckle behind him. Feminine.

He looks down as best as he can and blinks in realization that he’s being held up by a yellow color-coded woman who was shorter than him.

Manny groans and glares at Robin, “I told you it was a trap! Classic movie trap – kidnap one, the rest follow.”

Robin opens his mouth, pauses and looks down, “Huh. Really did not think of that.”

“Good job, genius.”

“Take them back to the holding cell,” says the red one. All three humans quickly attempt to struggle free, but all it gains them are laughs.

The metal sliding door to the warehouse slams open.

Everyone stops and turns to see Shrignold enter, looking every bit unamused. He turns to them and gives a forced smile, “There you are. You know, the three of you – not you and the others, Harry – are idiots because you did not take into account that using magic would spark attention.” He narrows his eyes and they glow. Harry does not miss the flinch when he looks at the monster holding Manny.

“Anger?”

There’s that tick again. Shrignold presses his fingers to the side of his head as he grimaces, “Doubt?” He turns to the one holding Harry, “I don’t know you, though.”

“Loyalty,” they say.

“Huh.”

All three humans share a look.

“Didn’t you work a job like this before, getting rid of Successors?” Shrignold’s tapping on his temple gets faster, “Except…there was another guy.”

Repressed memories. Definitely repressed memories. Concepts don’t just forget things, they remembered almost everything they ever go through.

Or maybe the memories were ripped out of his soul.

Harry’s eyes dart from Anger and Doubt and back to Shrignold, who looks like he’s about to have a headache.

Doubt laughs, “Oh, did you mean Pride? Yeah, he said his experiment had served its purpose and he had no need to continue it.”

“Wimp from the start,” Anger sneers.

Harry sees Shrignold whisper, bug-eyed, “Pride?” under his breath.

“We don’t need him for this,” Loyalty sneers and brings Harry lower so that their noses are inches apart, “He values his own agenda over the Family’s benefit. He’s a stain.”

“Always has been,” Doubt chortles.

“That aside,” Shrignold calls up and tilts his head down, hair shadowing his eyes and amplifying the glow in the process, “Let. My friends. Go.”

“Friends?” Manny whimpers when he’s lifted off the ground higher when Anger laughs. The hand holding him by the hair grips tighter and tears are forming at the corner of his eyes. “Since when did you have friends, Love?”

“Since I started not being a jerk to Successors?”

“Successors are weak. They’re not even Successors, they’re abominations.”

“Well, the Voices chose them to vessel Creativity and Time’s powers instead of creating new Concepts, didn’t they? Shouldn’t that count for something?” he cocks his head to the side and grins, “Or is that it? Are you jealous that daddy’s picking favorites from humans to be our new siblings?”

“You watch your mouth – ”

Both Manny and Anger cry out as Anger’s wrist snaps a full 180 upward and he lets go of Manny. The Concept hisses and clutches his broken hand. Shrignold tuts as he makes his way towards the stairs, “Don’t even think about running, Doubt, Loyalty.”

“You’re not that strong, you’ll burn out quickly.”

He hums and claps his hands together, “Has anyone ever told you that rage is a powerful motivator?”

Harry can _feel_ their magic draw back as the gold in Shrignold’s eyes grows brighter. Manny, now unrestrained, stands shakily with one hand on his head but Anger raises his other hand to hold him back. Shrignold points to him, “What did I say?”

Everyone freezes. Harry doesn’t notice that he’s holding his breath.

Anger’s hand hits the back of Manny’s head at the same time that Shrignold snaps his fingers and the red Concept is flung off the bridge and onto the ground floor. Manny drops to his knees as he starts throwing up water. Lots of water. Almost like he was turning into a human fountain.

Harry’s eyes go wide and he kicks back, hitting Loyalty in the stomach and they grunt. He slaps his hands on theirs that were holding him up by the collar and their grip starts to loosen. They shriek, “What are you doing?!”

“Manny!” Harry yells. The water coming out of Manny’s out is steaming as it hit the metal floor. Manny’s keeping himself from collapsing completely by only his arms.

Downstairs, Anger roars and the bridge shakes a bit. Shrignold points to Doubt and snaps again. Robin drops to the floor as he’s let go when Doubt crashes back onto the wall behind them.

He crawls over to Manny and gets the younger man to his feet, supporting his weight as both of them hobble towards the stairs. Harry’s still kicking against Loyalty.

“Shrignold!”

The Concept of Love runs to where Harry is and grabs Loyalty’s neck just as they place their free hand on Shrignold’s head.

They both stop.

Harry stops squirming but doesn’t take his hands off of Loyalty’s.

“Shrignold,” he hisses, “Get it over with; the tethers are restricting my movements.”

“Forget about them,” Loyalty says. They aren’t blinking as they and Shrignold stare each other down. “You belong with us, Love. We’re your family. You should help us, not these worms.”

Harry starts to lash out again as he realizes what they’re doing, “Shrignold, no!”

“You should be on our side, Love,” Loyalty continues. Shrignold’s expression has been blank since they started talking and Harry’s growing more panicked with every second. “Shrignold, you said you were going to help us!”

“Which was a confused mistake. It’s okay, we understand. You were curious about them, but now you know there’s nothing unique about them,” Loyalty grins, “Right, Love?”

The glow of Shrignold’s eyes blink out and Loyalty’s grin gets wider.

Harry swallows thickly.

Then Shrignold tilts his head to the side and leers, “Did you really think that was going to work on me?”

Loyalty has a second to gasp before their head is being forced to look up and Harry is let go. He sighs in relief and stands. Shrignold still has not let Loyalty go.

“Shrignold, I think we need to get out of here. Anger and Doubt are still around.”

“They’re immobile, don’t worry about them,” he lets go of Loyalty who, instead of attacking them like Harry expected, stares up at Shrignold without any trace of hostility on their face.

Their pupils were dilated.

Harry’s brain short-circuits. What the _hell?!_

“First of all, don’t ever call me ‘Love’,” Shrignold starts. Loyalty nods, “Yes, sir.”

Okay, back up. Sir? Better than Love, Harry guesses.

“Harry has a blood bind. Get rid of that.”

“Yes, sir,” they sprint back to the direction of Harry’s holding cell earlier.

He walks over to where Robin and Manny are frozen in shock by the stairs, even as Manny continues to spit out boiling water. Shrignold takes them downstairs and Harry follows them after he realizes that they’re moving. Anger is on the floor, pinned down by an unseen force just like Doubt on the wall upstairs.

Shrignold puts Anger in a chokehold for a minute before letting them go. Once he does, Anger stands up and Harry sees that his pupils are dilated too.

Shrignold gestures to Manny, “Fix him.”

Anger nods and puts a hand on the human’s forehead. The water stops running out his mouth and he gasps, hungrily savoring the ability to breathe normally.

A few minutes later, Loyalty breaks the blood bind on Harry and the man can feel his limbs move without much stiffness. Shrignold does…whatever he did to the others…to Doubt for good measure and tells all of them to go home and never come back.

Surprisingly, they do and leave the humans and the Concept of Love back at the warehouse.

Robin turns to Shrignold, “What did you just do?”

He sighs, “There is a certain state that humans call ‘madly in love’ when the hormones in the body cause the human to feel like they can do anything, _would do_ anything for the person they feel attraction to. I can control hormones, raise them up to a state where a human can pledge eternal servitude because they feel ‘love’ for me.

“For Concepts, it’s not permanent and I don’t want it to either. It’ll last for at least twelve  hours so we need to get out of here before they decide to come back.”

“Wait,” Robin points to him, “You’re telling me you just did a move straight out of the Sword of Truth series?”

“Excuse me?”

“Confessor powers? Love hypnotism? Kahlan Amnell? You don’t know what that is?”

“No.”

“Wow. How old are you again?”

“Let’s just out of here, okay?” Shrignold puts a hand to his forehead, “Also, I was bluffing when I implied that I wouldn’t burn out. Telekinesis is a hard feat to pull off.”

All of them slowly gape as Shrignold’s eyes roll to the back of his head. He sways before collapsing.

*

“He’ll be fine,” Manny says as he enters the living room where Harry and Robin are, both fresh from the shower. Robin motions his head towards the bathroom, “Your turn.”

Manny nods and exits.

Paige is in her room, for once, sleeping peacefully since she’s just resumed eating regularly again and her stomach got upset about the sudden heavy intake of food. She’s spent the past few days cooped up in her room, looking and acting slightly less miserable, but they still kept the harmful stuff away from her.

Harry doesn’t say anything and neither does Robin, Harry choosing to mechanically run the towel over his hair while Robin was poking at his wounds that were still in the process of healing.

Manny passes by again, bringing his towel and clothes to the bathroom and after the door shuts, the only sound that’s in the house is the sound of running water.

Harry sighs, “Thanks for coming to rescue me.”

“Yeah,” Robin nods and looks away, “Why wouldn’t we?”

“I thought you were mad at me.”

“Still am.”

Harry hums, “That’s kinda funny though. I think I’m the one who has the right to be mad.”

“We are not going to talk about this.”

“Yes we are, Robin.”

“No, listen, Harry, there is nothing to talk about.”

“If there isn’t, then why are you getting so defensive?”

Robin whirls around to face him, “Because I don’t like you poking around my business!”

Another minute of silence.

“We are not going to solve it by arguing all the time.”

“Then how are we going to solve this, Harry?”

“Just talk to me.”

Robin’s glare falters and he lets out a breath as he falls back on the couch, “You’re just going to get mad again.”

“Robin, we’ve been through a lot. And…whatever dark secret you’re harboring, I’m probably just going to take it in stride because that’s the only thing I know how to do.” He laughs dryly, “I’m actually madder that you chose to keep it a secret from us than the thought of you killing someone.”

Robin blinks and turns to him, incredulous, “I thought I was the only insensitive bastard around here.”

“People need to adapt to survive.”

“Way to go, you just made me feel fucking guilty,” Robin crosses his arms, but he’s not as rigid as before, “Let’s wait for Manny first. If I’m going to tell you, I’m going to tell both of you.”

Harry nods, “Good. There’s alcohol in the fridge.”

*

Paige gets sick. Real sick.

She’s admitted to the hospital, but she continues to degrade until she’s only on life support. Five years later, they have to pull the plug.

They move on.

*

The album falls out of the box Manny’s carrying.

Harry raises an eyebrow and picks it up, noticing the layer of dust that it’s gathered. He grabs a rag and wipes it off until he doesn’t feel like pushing it away whenever he touches it.

“You still keep this?” he asks.

Manny shrugs, “It’s – it’s the only thing I have from before…you know, everything.”

The cover is worn and dog-eared. Harry guesses that it must have been frequently used before, but now it’s mostly sitting in a shelf or tucked under the bed, collecting webs and dust. Majority of the pictures on the first page is of Manny as a child, posing by the lake, by the school, in an ice cream shop with his face smeared with the treat.

Harry’s finger rests at one picture and his shoulders sag.

This one was a picture of Manny and his father.

Manny should be at least three years old and his father had him riding on his shoulder, both of them all smiles as they posed beside what seems to be a Christmas tree, judging from the green leaves, fairy lights and Christmas balls strung up on it.

Manny clears his throat awkwardly, “Yeah – that’s...that’s an old photo. I should probably –” he moves to remove it from Harry’s hands, but the man says, expression pleading, “Can I go through the rest of it, please?”

The younger of the two sighs, “No harm in doing so, I guess.”

He continues out the room to help Robin with packing up.

Harry flips through the pages as the photos transition from Manny’s family to them, when the boy was put in their care. There’s a photo of them fishing, Manny’s tenth birthday, first day at the new school in the neighborhood, and then the photos started to get smaller in size, but increasing in number, nearly mosaicked onto the page with how close they were glued.

Random snaps of Harry or Robin sleeping on the couch, fixing up the car, buying Manny a bike, that one time they set up liters of diet coke in the backyard and tossed Mentos into them to make them blow up, movie nights, game nights, when Manny won a state art competition, when Harry had to go out of town for a business trip, when Robin pranked them and a few neighbors during April Fool’s.

Then the photos stop abruptly.

There are still about six pages in the album that haven’t been filled and not as worn out from flipping back and forth like the rest.

He sighs, choosing to go back to the pages with the photos.  He runs his hands over them to restore them back to their pristine condition, good as new, no folds or scratches. This was an easy trick enough to not make him pass out, and he has a feeling he’s going to need this album to keep him grounded. He gives a laugh at the thought.

Only movies and books had characters who lost the light in their eyes the longer the story went and the more they went through, but somehow – his brow furrows and his eyes feel hot as he slowly looks at each picture.

He can’t remember the last time Manny and Robin smiled that wide.

Hell, he can’t remember smiling that wide with that much mirth in his eyes.

He can’t remember the last time they went out to enjoy themselves without looking over their shoulder, paranoid, or entering the house and treading slowly just in case someone got in. He can’t remember the last time they celebrated a holiday, or when they didn’t have to remember which of their identities was fake and real. He can’t remember the last time they went to a beach, or a camping trip, or celebrated their birthdays. He can’t remember the last time he slept without a knife under his pillow.

He restores the rest of the album before packing it with the rest of their stuff.

*

“Can you just leave me the _fuck_ alone?!”

The cycle didn’t stop. In fact, Harry thinks it’s not going to. Their abilities got worse, they moved, they met Paige and Tony again and Tony died. Drowned. Just as Paige remembered everything again.

The papers and the lamp crash on the floor as she sweeps them off the desk.  He doesn’t move and she picks the pen off the ground, tackles him, and starts stabbing him with it. The pen is blunt and the tip breaks off, spilling ink all over him but she continues to dig it into his body.

He doesn’t move. It stings, bad, but if he retaliates, she going to get angrier and he might accidentally hurt her – rot her, even.

He realizes that he’s still breathing, painfully, even as she stabs him one last time and starts crying into his shirt. Her tears sting the gaping wound on his chest.

Harry slowly wraps an arm around her and sits up until she’s in his lap and lets her cry. He tells himself that he’s doing this because this was the right thing to do and he was a good person.

He was a good person.

*

Sometimes, Harry makes mistakes. Sometimes he brings up things he’s not supposed to bring up. Like when Tony drowned and Paige wanted to kill herself again so she could make the cycle go faster and Robin was fine with helping her. Harry thought that was just…wrong. They had another argument, he brought up Robin’s murderous streak from years ago and they had another fight.

But they’re friends. They’re all they each have. Most of their families are dead now.

Sometimes, he thinks about his life and how messed up it is. He’s well over the fifty-year mark of metamorphosis now. They need to lessen the wards in their flat and car if they still want to move around without being trapped. With his thinking he usually ends up in a bar, pissed beyond coherency.

Sometimes he thinks about what the point to all this is before telling himself things will get better. There has to be a purpose for this.

Hope, Shrignold had said.

Maybe they were just temporary hosts of Creativity and Time and once their punishment was done, they could go back to their really normal lives, preferably under interdimensional witness protection program.

Sometimes he thinks how messed up it is that they consider Shrignold as a ‘friend’.

They need to hope.

*

“Straight ahead, go _go!”_

“I am trying to!”

“You’re not going fast enough!”

“Well, how about you drive it?!”

“In case you haven’t noticed, _I’m missing one leg, Robin!”_

The ground jerks, jolting the car off the ground for a millisecond, as something lands in front of them. Robin wrenches the wheel hard to the left and the vehicle swerves off the path and into the pharmacy that’s placed right beside the road. It was a good thing the walls of the building were made of glass, so the car didn’t get much damage, but unfortunately, that meant they had wrecked a building, scared about thirty civilians (one elderly man looked like he was going into cardiac arrest), and had a broken windshield.

But then, they were also in a tight situation.

“Harry!”

Robin didn’t need to tell him twice before he slams his hand on the dashboard and they watch as the bits of glass that had chipped off the windshield flew back into place and the cracks mended themselves together. As soon as they were, Robin turned so that he was looking back and set the car in reverse, stomping on the gas hard. The car jolts again when the rear runs over the person in the middle of the road, the one who had landed in front of them that had led to them crashing into the pharmacy in the first place.

Robin grins, faces front again and swerves right. The car gives another jump when they run over the body again as they drive down the highway.

“How’re you doing back there, Manny?” Robin asks.

Manny pushes himself off the side of the car door, as he was knocked to the side when the car went over the body, and hisses, “What do you think – I’m losing a lot of blood!”

Harry turns in his seat, eyes immediately landing on Manny’s right leg. Or what was left of it anyway.

The limb was cleanly cut off at the knee and now Manny had wrapped his sweater vest around the gaping wound to stop the blood flow, but it wasn’t enough. The blood is still dripping through the cloth and getting the inside of the car messier. Manny looks pale, is shaking slightly and has a crazed look in his eyes that is either hysteria or rage.

“Harry, reverse it!” Robin yells. There’s a huge ball of fire being thrown at them from behind and Robin wrenches the wheel to the side again to evade it. Harry hits his head on the window of the car door and Manny slides along with the tilt, hissing when his injured leg gets hit.

Harry rubs his sore temple, “It won’t work, it’ll just make him sleepy!”

“Do something!”

“What am I supposed to do?!”

“Would you both shut up?!” Manny clamps his hand on the back of Harry’s seat to sit straight, “If I die I’m going to haunt both your asses for the rest of your lives.”

“Wait, can you even die?”

“Way to be insensitive, Robin.”

“No, it’s a valid – whoa – ” another ball of fire from behind and a hard turn “ – it’s a valid question. If we _are_ inheriting Paige and Tony’s abilities, wouldn’t it be safe to assume we’d regenerate too?”

“Another valid question – is anything safe nowadays?!”

“Point.”

“OhGodIreallyamgoingtodie.”

Harry shifts in his seat again and puts his hand on Manny’s forehead with enough force to knock him back a bit with a loud _SMACK._

“What are you – ”

Manny’s eyes roll to the back of his head and he falls back onto his seat, unconscious. Robin glances at him, “Harry, what are you doing?”

“Hoping you were right.” Harry moves so that his knees are on his seat and bends down as much as he can, arms extended towards the stump of Manny’s leg. “Also, as Shrignold would say – ” he sighs in relief when his hands are able to reach the wound, “ – getting creative on how to bend my element.”

A translucent sphere flickers to life around what was left of Manny’s leg, humming slightly. Harry’s eyes start to roll up and he closes them, suddenly paling and sagging against his chair. He starts to retch.

“Harry, don’t you dare throw up, not right now!”

He opens his mouth but the bile rises up his throat and he keeps it shut instead.

“What’d you do?” Robin glances at the rearview mirror to look at Manny’s wound and the glowing sphere around it. Harry’s starting to breathe hard, “S-sus…pension.”

“Isolated time suspension, okay,” Robin finishes for him and he nods gratefully. Another harsh turn to the right as they nearly slammed into a building again. Harry gags, fumbles with the control of his window and rolls it down quickly before sticking his head out and puking.

Robin grimaces.

Harry wipes his mouth with his sleeve and closes the window when he moves back inside, “Y-You know I think I get why Tony n-never tried that.”

“Yeah,” Robin shudders, “Try not to next time as well.”

*****

Manny does die from blood loss.

Harry steps outside before everything in the flat gets rotted to dust even if he hasn’t laid a hand on anything. Robin stays in the room.

With as much control as he can muster, Harry drives the car to the local pub and gets wasted.

He wakes up in a park bench the next morning with a bad hangover.

Hours later, Robin calls him, sounding hysterical, _“Harryhe’salive!”_

Harry blinks and slurs, “What?”

_“He’s alive!”_

“Who?”

_“Manny’s alive, you numbnut. Also have you been drinking? Shrignold says he saw you sleeping at the park, pissed.”_

“Shrigno – he’s around?”

_“Yeah.”_

“Alright, I’ll be right over.”

_“Actually no.”_

Harry watches a familiar red sedan comes to a stop right across the park he’s sleeping at. Manny’s at the driver’s seat and Robin grins from beside him, _“You parked the car back at the pub, you idiot.”_

Harry has never gotten on his feet and barreled down the street so fast to hug Manny when he gets out of the car.

*

There’s a storm raging outside their flat with raindrops violently wailing on their windows. It’s a surprise the glass hasn’t broken yet, not that they wanted it to. They’d have to pay for the damages and with two bottomless-stomached kids to feed; they can’t afford it.

Robin, as always, tucks Paige to bed after a story. (Tony goes to sleep by himself, he’s not a _child,_ he insists. “Yeah, right, mister, you’re eleven.”) She seems to be taking the revelation that her guardians are more than two centuries old in stride, and Harry guesses that it’s either because she’s nine or because there’s a tiny, niggling part in her head that says it’s not so odd, she’s lived longer before.

The lights in the building suddenly go out.

Everyone in the flat freezes. Robin looks up, Paige squints and tries to make out his face in the dark.

“Blackout?” she asks.

“Looks like it,” Robin rises from the side of her bed and feels his way towards her dresser, where she keeps candles and matches in the top drawer. Typical. Four reincarnations and she’s still a pyromaniac.

He lights a candle, goes to the kitchen to grab a mug and then returns to her room, setting the candle inside the mug so that the melted wax wouldn’t make a mess. He puts the mug and candle on the desk across her bed.

Paige makes a face, “Is the speaker charged?”

Robin goes over to turn it on. The light blips red for a second before blacking out. He shakes his head.

The nine year old pouts, “That sucks.”

“It does,” Robin says, removing the flash drive from its slot and placing it inside one of the jars Paige has arranged beside her computer monitor. The jars are labelled accordingly: pens, markers, flash drives.

Paige sits up and messes up her hair while Robin sits at the side of her bed, “But then I won’t be able to sleep!”

“Sorry, Paige,” he says, looking apologetic, “It’s just one night, don’t you think you can through it without a music box playlist?”

She shakes her head, defiant, “No, I want music while I sleep.”

Robin sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Paige is the only one in the house who owns a rechargeable, portable speaker; he needs his laptop to conserve power for work tomorrow and all his phone has is a list of his contacts.

“You could always sing.”

He looks down to see her wide grin.

“You would enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

“You bet I would,” she tugs at his sleeve, “Sing me to sleep, Robin!” Paige drags out his name and lies back on the bed with a plop.

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No, Paige.”

“Then I’ll pester you until morning. I don’t have school tomorrow but you have work.”

Robin narrows his eyes at her. She smirks.

One point for the little piece of hyperactive reincarnated rainbow.

The man presses his lips to a thin line. Sure, he likes looking after this version of them, shrunk down and de-aged, not to mention a whole lot more fun since he’s raising them, but singing? No, he liked that as much as he liked streaking. A big fat no. Screw that. Now, if only the universe would be so cooperative to give them their power back and –

There’s a loud static. Both of them whip their heads towards her desk, where the speaker’s ‘ON’ light is blinking rapidly. It steadies and then…the small, soothing notes of a music box playing Silent Night drift out of the speaker, clear.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Paige says. Robin’s jaw hangs as he stares at the now functioning speaker.

The girl points at the device, “What the fuck is that?”

“That’s a music box rendition of Silent Night.”

“I know that, smartass, couldn’t the damn ghost that’s possibly haunting my room and speaker pick a better song?”

Like what?

Then the speaker statics again, before it’s blasting out Highway to Hell in full volume that it’s vibrating across the desk.

“Shit!”

For a brief moment, Robin realizes that Paige curses more than him.

The girl jumps off her bed while he stands, instinctively raising an arm to keep her behind him. They watch as the speaker teeters off the edge of the desk and crashes to the floor, it goes silent.

There’s a pregnant pause.

Paige speaks first, “Okay, what the fuck was that?”

“Would you please stop cursing?”

“Hey, I learned that from you, _dear._ Now what just happened? Is my room haunted?”

“Uh,” Robin shuts his mouth. The weather outside is making it hard to discern if the room’s temperature is ‘ghostly’ cold. Paige wraps a hand on his sleeve. He instinctively pulls her closer to his side.

The right pocket of his pants lights up and starts playing Tearin’ Up my Heart.

Paige yells, rips it out of his pocket and throws it across the room.

*

If monsters like Paige and Tony were real (before the rules changed) then there was a huge chance that ghosts were real too. The boys are not about to risk it, but Paige refuses to share a room with anyone or move out of town because ‘a pissy ghost decided to hang out in her room’. To her credit, the incident doesn’t happen again, but that was probably because she didn’t replace her speaker.

Robin’s got a new phone.

When none of their appliances act up and boom out a random song without their permission, they leave it. It was probably an entity like Tony and Paige, thinking it would be fun to mess with them before realizing they have two former murderous personifications of creativity and time. They may be kids, but given the right weapons, they’d be able to turn the city into a ghost town.

The next incident is with Manny. His job this time is a teacher – yes, Robin still makes fun about him for that – and they’ve got a party at school. He missed a meeting and now he’s assigned to bake the cake for the kids. As punishment, he couldn’t order the cake, he had to make it himself.

“I don’t even know how to bake a cupcake,” he says, putting his head in his hands.

“I don’t either,” Harry shrugs as he covers the pot to let the soup stew. Manny looks towards Robin. The older man wrinkles his nose, “Don’t look at me, I’m not Cake Prince.”

Manny groans and slumps forward, face on the counter.

“Just look up a recipe or something,” Harry says.

Manny looks up, “…do you think I can ask Paige to help?”

Harry and Robin exchange looks. The red head swallows, “She’s nine. So far, she’s retained all of her talents but…I can’t imagine a nine year old being a pastry genius.”

Manny loudly exhales through his nose, “You’re right. That was stupid idea anyway.”

Robin pats his back, “Just try, okay? There’s plenty of recipes in the internet.”

A week later, Robin and Harry come home to a five-layer cake in perfect cream frosting, lined with thick white at the edges and decorated strawberries that are cut in equal halves. Manny sits on the stool, focused as he handles the frosting piping bag.

Both of them stop at the doorway and stare at the masterpiece, _“Whoa.”_

Manny looks up, “Oh, hey.”

“You said you couldn’t bake a cupcake,” Harry says, “I get that you can make a cake by following a recipe but this is shop perfect.”

“I am just as surprised as you are,” Manny says. “I mean, I can draw a bit, but this?” he shakes his head.

“Does adrenaline extend to the creative faculties of the brain?” Robin walks over to the bowl of extra frosting and scoops up some with his finger, popping it in his mouth. “Mmm, it’s good. Not too sweet, not too bland.”

“I know right? It’s crazy,” Manny hops off the chair, “I didn’t have a recipe for the frosting, only for the cake.”

“And you were able to make this?” Harry motions at the towering dessert.

Manny nods, “It just…I followed my instincts?”

Robin chuckles, “There’s instinct for danger and choice, but for baking instincts, you might be on the edge of a scientific breakthrough.” The man continues to empty out the bowl. Manny snatches it from him before he can do so.

“So what, does being forever young come with instant artistic abilities?” Harry smirks and Manny returns the gesture. Robin, however, straightens and raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t comment on it further, aside from the fact that Manny’s cake also tastes absolutely perfect.

*****

“Thomas, are you listening to me?”

Harry blinks, and shakes his head a bit before turning to face the shorter guy in front of him who’s snapping his fingers in front of Harry’s face. Thomas, right, that’s his fake name right now.

“Y-yeah, just a little sleep deprived.”

And he wasn’t lying about that. He’s been pulling all-nighters lately and he thinks he’s consumed more than thirty cups of coffee since this started. He’s also accidentally turned several of his co-worker’s reports to dust when he was struggling to stay awake while in the process of delivering them to the head office. He’d sorted that out quickly, but still, if he wasn’t careful, he could hurt someone, get fired, or get tracked down.

Whatever, he’ll take Concepts head on because he’s so unbelievably _pissed off_ right now.

“How long has it been since you’ve had sleep?” asks…Harry forgot his name. What was his name again? Was that important at the moment?

“About 98 hours, 42 minutes, 34 seconds and counting.”

Also, he’s starting to see shadow people walking around. Ugh.

“Damn, you know the exact time? You must be pretty knocked out, man.”

“Fuck _yes,_ I’m running on caffeine, and truth be told, I feel like I wanted to strangle someone right now,” he grouches and takes another swig of his coffee mug. The guy reaches up to take it out his hands, “You might want to lay off it then.”

“No!” he raises one hand, “I need to stay awake because the boss is a pain in the fucking ass –”

“Thomas, you really shouldn’t say that out loud!”

“And if you touch my mug, I will rot your ass along with everyone else here.”

The human raises an eyebrow, “O…kay. Thomas, you need to lay off the coffee.”

Harry growls. The lights flicker. The human in front of him looks around wildly, “Alright, alright! I’ll leave you alone, just get home and get some sleep, I think you might be influencing the electrical wiring now.” Harry’s eyes widen for a second before the man laughs, “As if, right? That was a cool coincidence though.”

He inwardly sighs. His angry rant had already slipped out that he could rot things, not that anyone would believe it but, he might just mess up.

He goes home, still sour about everything, and passes old man Fergus who leers at him and points his cane at him threateningly. Harry shudders. The old guy’s always had a suspicion – no, not just a suspicion. He _knew_ that there was something going on with them. He’d accused them of being witches once, but them being the kindest (they kicked Robin whenever he was being rude) tenants in the building nobody believed him.

The old man mutters something under his breath before walking away. Harry sighs for the umpteenth time and enters their flat, which is thankfully clean so he doesn’t have to throw a caffeine and fatigue-induced fit.

Manny tells him there’s a letter on the coffee table for him from the school.

Harry’s got a headache, a file due tomorrow and a meeting with Tony’s teacher because the boy had beaten another kid bloody. Tony never hits anyone unless provoked, so that kid was probably annoying or a bully. He really can’t bring himself to care right now.

Eventually, he says fuck it and heads to bed for a well-deserved, well-earned rest.

Work isn’t any easier the next day, his headache hasn’t disappeared and Tony spends the entire meeting with his arms crossed and a glare fixed at his teacher. Harry wonders if this woman knows she’s sitting with a cold-blooded, hardened murderer.

When they get home, the neighbors are going haywire.

The entire flat is swarmed with thick vines, thorns and what appear to be flowers that have ‘mouths’ lined with sharp teeth decorating the overgrowth. The vines stick and rise up until the third floor, which is where they are coincidentally staying. They look like veins and arteries.

Whatever the neighbors might think, of course it’s not a coincidence.

The plants have crawled in the windows and they have a hard time chopping them off and getting rid of them.

In the morning, the vines have taken over the inside of their flat.

Harry hacks away at them, teeth gritted and muttering obscenities under his breath. One of the flowers snap its jaws shut, and then two, until the area is ringing with the sound of thousands of mouths clacking their mouths close.

Harry backs away, eyes wide, and the snapping stops instantly.

Manny run a hand through his hair, “What is that?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says. He gulps. At the same time, the flowers duck their heads and shake slightly.

“Whoa,” Manny’s eyes dart around the place, “Are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“That,” he points to the now retreating and quivering plants.

“No!”

The plants shrink back past the window. Manny elbows him, “Tell them to stop.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

“Manny!”

_“Just do it, Harry!”_

“Alright, stop!”

The very last tendril that’s escaping out the window halts in its tracks. Manny grins and Harry groans, “Not again.”

“Looks like we weren’t done with the metamorphosis thing.”

*

Meetings are a lot more discrete this time. Instead of defense and trapping symbols, the flat has cloaking wards on it. If they still set the wards to defense and trap when they had completed metamorphosis, they would get blown off by the flat or stuck until someone else got them out. Someone human, and Paige and Tony were not in the list of options.

So they meet Shrignold in the middle of the night near the London Eye after they make sure the kids are tucked in.

Shrignold makes a show of inhaling deeply once they arrive, “Ah, London, good to be back! The smell of polluted air and tourists.”

“Git,” Manny punches his shoulder once he gets close enough.

“Come on, it’s not my fault humans have so little sentiment for their home.”

“Maybe you could influence them by giving them _love_ for nature.”

“And that’s where the hippies came from,” Robin snorts.

“So, any trouble lately?”

“Besides me losing my leg a few weeks ago? Nah.” Manny rolls his eyes, “Why else would we call you?”

“To say hi to a friend?”

“I’d just call your phone, idiot.”

Now that was one of the odd developments they’ve yet to get used to. After Shrignold made it clear that he wasn’t going to step foot in their current home if Paige and Tony were staying there, they decided to get him a phone so they could contact him during emergencies since summoning was out of the question. It was fun watching him get acquainted with modern human technology.

They settle themselves on the hood of the truck (Shrignold sat on the roof) and explain the current situation: Manny’s always been good with arts but being good with crafts you didn’t practice years for was definitely something, Harry’s weird plant-control thing and the appliances acting up, which they think might be tied to Robin.

If there was anything they learned in the whole spiel, it was that majority of hunches were usually right.

“Do what you always do,” Shrignold says.

“Shrignold, we’ve finished metamorphosis,” Manny points out to him, “We can’t push down our magic with our humanity.”

“If that’s the case, how are you controlling the abilities you’re already familiar with?”

They pause.

“Huh,” Harry looks down at his hands.

“You’ve been doing it for so long, it’s a subconscious action,” Shrignold claps his hands together, “The body remembers when you exercise muscles, so does the brain, and so does the soul. Just do what you always do. Concentrate.”

Manny grins, “I don’t think I need to concentrate much on mine, it’s pretty easy.”

“You’re lucky you had the ink thing early,” Robin grumbles and fishes out his phone.

Shrignold points to the flower poking out of the sidewalk crack and turns to Harry, “Test on that one.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Make it grow taller, for starters?”

Harry gives him an incredulous look before sliding off the hood and walking towards the flower. He crouches down, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and lets his hands hover over it.

His hands feel warm. He concentrates just like he always has when he’s warping time, but this time, he doesn’t think about reversing time or fast-forwarding it. He thinks about plants growing and blooming beautifully. Nature’s own art.

He hears his friends clap their hands behind him and opens his eyes to see his handiwork. The sidewalk crack has grown and several more flowers are popping out of it, all fresh, thick-stemmed and healthy. He grins.

“Your turn,” he elbows Robin as he takes  his seat back on the hood of the car.

Robin plays with his phone in his hands, “In case I mess up, we have money to buy a new phone, right?”

Manny chuckles, “Credit card scams, remember?”

“Better be latest model,” Robin places the phone on the hood and concentrates.

A minute.

He throws his hands up and yells in frustration.

“It’s probably not me, that was probably just a fluke,” he runs his hands through his hair and messes it up, scratching his scalp with his nails furiously. Shrignold frowns, “A speaker that shouldn’t be on plays music and you think it’s a fluke?”

“Maybe ghosts are real.”

“No cold spots, remember?”

Robin opens his mouth to retort when the phone suddenly lights up:

_You and me are irresistible_  
In too deep it’s unbelievable  
Gotta be true, yeah, it’s gotta be you  
Ooh oh-oh ooh ooh  
Ooh oh-oh ooh-ooh

All four of them look down. The phone’s still set on the menu screen and the music player isn’t on.

“Is that song on your phone?” Manny asks.

“Yeah.”

“Try playing something that’s not on it.”

Robin straightens and leers at his phone again. This time, the change is almost instantaneous. It turns to static for a second before guitars and drums start playing. The rest of them clap.

_In between the lines, there’s a lot of obscurity  
I’m not inclined to resign to maturity_

Manny and Robin high-five each other and start swaying side to side with the music. “Good choice,” Manny says.

“That sounds familiar,” Shrignold looks at them as the song continues to play.

Manny and Robin start singing along.

“How do you all know that song?” Harry asks.

“You never watched our shows with us, did you?” Robin asks. Harry shakes his head. He groans, “Come on, it’s practically our theme song nowadays.”

“With old man Fergus?” Manny snickers.

Robin grins, “Bad sitcom situation, yeah.”

Eventually, the discussion goes from bad television choices to how horrible their work has been lately, how many Concepts they’ve ran from in the past few weeks and Harry’s complaining about how his car was being abused from being scrubbed down of its trapping wards to replace them with cloaking wards.

All in all, it was a good night spent.

*

A month later, it was probably not the best idea to come home once again sleep deprived, caffeine-high and forgetting where the remote was placed as well as arguing which channel the television should be on.

Harry didn’t have enough sleep again, Robin lost the remote and Manny wanted to catch up on that supernatural show that he’d been following lately. That ended up in a shouting match that attracted Paige and Tony’s ears and led them downstairs to scope it out, while Manny was furiously clicking the channel back to where he wanted against Robin who was snapping his fingers to switch it back to his channel.

Needless to say, both children dropped what they were carrying (Tony his homework, Paige an expensive figurine she stole from the neighbor and was planning on planting in that Jason kid’s back to get him in trouble) and said, in unison, “Cool.”

All three adults stopped what they were doing and turned to them.

Then, Manny realized his opportunity and clicked the channel back.

To which Robin reacted with a loud, “Hey!” and another snap to change it back again.

And back to the shouting match that escalated into a brawl.

Thus, that was how they ended up explaining to the kids how Robin had electromagnetic influence, Manny could create caustic ink and Harry could warp time. Once again, they took all of it in stride and even took advantage of it.

Right now, Paige is telling them about how the Jason kid on the floor right under them was going to throw a birthday party. All of them knew who this Jason boy was because he was one of the most obnoxious bullies in the street, not to mention rude (ruder than Robin, they’d give him that), inconvenienced the neighbors with his excessively loud sound system and did not respect his elderlies. Even old man Fergus deserved respect despite being a nosy crook.

She tells Robin to hijack the sound system for the party and prank everyone, because apparently all of Jason’s friends were as annoying as he was. And Paige had a solid point: they were classmates.

So here they were, Robin and Paige in the middle of the living room, feeling the floor vibrate from downstairs’ loud party and thinking that maybe the latest neighbor to complain just got kicked out while Harry, Manny and Tony were sitting around the dinner table, watching them, amused.

Both Robin and Paige are lying on their stomachs, across each other, facing down.

“So what are you going to do?” she asks.

“How badly do you want them spooked?”

“Can we put just a teeny tiny bit of,” she turns to the kitchen and sees Harry mouth a stern “No.” She shrugs, “Fuck ‘em up.”

From the kitchen, “Paige!”

Robin grins, lays his palms flat on the floor and then his ears to listen to what happens, Paige following suit. The speakers go silent, prompting the bewildered ‘what?’s of the guest and they can hear Jason’s father say there was probably a wiring problem.

Paige whispers, “They just bought that yesterday, he must be furious.”

“Wait for it,” Robin whispers back. A few seconds later, the sound of static slowly rises, earning them another series of surprised reactions and then

_This is the song that never ends_  
Yes it goes on and on my friend  
Some people started singing it  
Not knowing what it was  
And they'll continue singing it forever just because...

Harry’s eyes widen, Manny chokes on his food, Tony cracks a small smile and Paige throws her head back, cackling. Robin grins.

Paige regains enough composure to sit up, “How long is that going to go on?”

“Jason’s birthday doesn’t end until midnight.”

She collapses in a heap of high-pitched laughter.

_This is the song that never ends_  
Yes it goes on and on my friend  
Some people started singing it  
Not knowing what it was  
And they'll continue singing it forever just because...

*

“I’m home!” Harry announces as he closes the door behind him and turns around.

He’s met with the sight of a trashed living room.

He feels his stomach drop.

He searches the entire area and finds every single room in the same state. Furniture turned over, appliances and  mirrors shattered, walls having slash marks on them and the hot pool in his belly grows with every room he checks.

There’s a lot of blood in the bathroom. A kitchen knife lays haphazardly in the mess.

Harry puts a hand to his head.

Robin and Manny find him later, both of them looking at a printed ransom note. The worst part is that it’s signed, but not with a human name. Just one that looks like it would belong to a Concept.

“Prudence,” Manny huffs, “I don’t think we’ve heard that one before.”

“That’s because majority of them gave up after we passed the hundred-year period,” Robin tosses the note to the floor and scoffs, “Whoever this is, they’re idiots.”

“Maybe they got a weapon that could actually kill us.”

Robin snorts, “We’re full-fledged Concepts now, Concepts don’t die.”

“Yes, they can,” Harry cuts in.

His friends turn to him.

“Shrignold told me that they had a legend back home where a furious mother borrowed a reaper’s sword to avenge her Concept child’s death,” he says, “That sword is said to be capable of killing Concepts.”

“So they want to kill us?” Manny asks.

“Most likely.”

“But what would they gain from that?”

Harry chews the inside of his cheek, “Well, it’s possible that they think that killing us would let Creativity and Time look for another vessel and return to their original hosts.”

“That’s not a bad plan, actually.”

“No, that’s not it,” Robin waves a hand, brow furrowed with eyes glossed over, “They could have easily killed us if they knew where we lived, they’re luring us out, but why?”

He glances at the dried blood on the bathroom floor, “This was something else. They were willing to hurt Tony and Paige, and they want to lure us out. They want all of us out this place,” he gestures around him, “This isn’t a kidnapping, they want to kill all of us.”

“Why?” Harry croaks. He feels like he wants to puke.

“Nobody likes Tony and Paige back where they came from, think about it!” Robin storms out the bathroom, “It’s two birds with one stone, mortal kids who they hate, they have a weapon that can kill us, the kids’ guardians are definitely going to go on a rescue mission.”

“And then what?”

“There are no other likely vessels to become Successors,” he pauses in his step and raises a finger, “That means – ”

Manny takes a sharp breath, “There’s a big chance a new Concept will be born to take over the role of Time and Creativity.”

“They want a new slate,” Harry says. Robin nods, “We need to go find them and we need to not die.”

Manny’s phone rings, catching all their attention. Manny fumbles to get it out of his pocket, hands slick with blood from the note, and presses the call button, “Hello?”

His eyes go wide, “It’s Shrignold.”

His friends turn to him, expectant.

“Yeah? Yeah, we found a note, they’ve got Tony and Paige. You’re there? Where are you?” he motions for one of them to grab a pen and paper, reciting the address and letting Harry write it. There’s a loud noise on Shrignold’s side. “Shrignold?!”

“What’s wrong?” Robin asks. Manny winces, “Shrignold? Shrignold, don’t hang up, don’t – ”

_Crash!_ Static. Cut off.

The line beeps steady as Manny pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it.

“Okay,” Harry breaks the silence first, “We need to get down there and save everyone.”

*

The abandoned house’s floorboards are so worn down that any chance of stealth they have is completely blown when Harry steps inside first, hits a very weak spot and goes through the floor, directly into the basement.

He coughs up a “I’m okay” and swats the dust out of his vision.

When it clears, the first thing that catches his attention is that Paige and Tony are tied up at the corner, bloody and unmoving. He feels the magic running under his skin spike up, and for a moment he can’t believe he’s actually getting protective over them, but he was supposed to be a good person. Good people didn’t like children getting hurt, brats or not.

The second is that there are a lot of Concepts around here. The basement has been cleared, presumably by them for the expected fight and it’s spacious enough to contain what appears to be at least fifteen of them. Shoot. There’s three of them and…Shrignold. Oh crap, where the hell was Shrignold?

He grits his teeth and tells himself to focus. He had Time and Creativity running through his veins, he can take them. Probably. He hopes.

He spots Loyalty’s face and waves a hand, “Hey.”

The Concept sneers at him.

“So,” he stands up slowly, eyes alert to catch any movement from any of them, “Found the reaper’s sword that could kill a Concept?”

“Harry, what’s down there?” Manny hisses from above.

Harry forces himself to ignore that.

Someone steps forward and Harry hazards that they’re Prudence. “No,” they say, “But our friends are _close_ to the reaper’s blade.”

Shrignold mentioned a deal for the reaper’s blade. “Huh,” Harry snorts, “Did you happen to try and make a deal with the reaper but they said no?”

Prudence’s face scrunches up.

“Or.” Manny calls down to him again and Harry ignores it, “You couldn’t find the reaper.”

When the lights flicker under the weight of Prudence’s anger, he knows he’s hit the mark.

“Manny, Robin, get down here.” He yells up and moves out of the way as they move to the hole he dropped in and jump, Manny first, then Robin. They both freeze mid-stand when they notice that there’s more than one Concept in the room. Manny turns to glare at him, “You didn’t tell us there was more than one person!”

“If it helps, they can’t kill us, they don’t know how.”

“Actually,” Prudence pulls out a long, thin, silver chain from their coat that ends with a small bottle filled with what looks like blue, swirling light that sounds like it’s humming. Prudence grins, “We do.”

Robin and Manny both narrow their eyes at Harry, “Good job, genius.”

The other Concepts start getting off the crates and trunks they’re sitting on. Harry, Manny and Robin slowly inch towards each other, back to back. Harry gestures towards the corner Paige and Tony are. “Manny, you need to get the kids out of here,” he whispers.

“I don’t think I have enough time.”

“Just sneak at the back.”

“Harry, there’s three of us.”

Their whispers turn to fast hisses as they are slowly surrounded.

Robin elbows Harry, “How good are you with isolating time suspension?”

“Well enough.”

“How long can you hold it?”

“A minute and a half, tops.”

“That’s enough. Harry, I need you to suspend time in this room with the exception of the three of us,” Robin elbows Manny this time, “And while they’re frozen, move quick, get the kids, get out.”

“Robin, this is a huge place, you’ve got at least 40 seconds,” Harry says.

“Manny, move quick.”

“Robin, I can’t.”

“Manny, Paige and Tony could be dead, they’re _kids.”_

That makes the youngest of the three shut up and worry his lower lip again. He nods as subtly as he can.

“Once they’re out, we need to trap these guys here so we can get a head start,” Robin continues, “Got it?”

Both of them nod.

“Alright,” he turns to Harry, who takes in a deep breath. “Go.”

Harry screws his eyes shuts and extends his arms to the side. They all watch as all the Concepts freeze in step and Manny immediately rushes to the corner Paige and Tony are as Harry drops to his knees and clutches his stomach, retching. He scoops the children up, adrenaline helping, and runs back to where the others are. He places them down besides Harry and Robin links his hands together for Manny to step on so he can climb up.

“Ten!” Harry yells, getting paler each second.

Manny extends his arms down while Robin lifts up both Tony and Paige with ease, Manny has a harder time pulling them up, and just as Tony’s body is out, Harry shudders violently and gasps as everyone unfreezes again.

Robin yells up at him, “Go, go, go!”

Manny frantically hauls Paige’s torso out and Robin snaps his fingers. The lightbulbs in the basement shatter and the room is plunged in darkness.

Nobody moves.

Manny doesn’t say anything as he finally gets Paige out and wobbles out the door of the house as slowly and as best as he can without falling through the floor.

Downstairs, nobody makes a sound. There are no footsteps and everybody seems to be holding their breath. Harry tries to adjust to the dark lighting, but his eyes aren’t cooperating with him and he can’t see anything.

A red pinprick of a light blips into existence in the corner accompanied with a warble of static and he knows exactly what’s going on. Robin’s turning on the radio.

_There’s a lady who’s sure_  
all that glitters is gold  
And she’s buying a stairway  
to Heaven

He moves back on the balls of his feet and Robin’s not more than an inch behind him. “What are you doing?” he whispers. Robin feels his way up his back and places his hand on his shoulder, “I can feel their temperatures, remember? I’ll tell you where they are, stay close.”

“What is that?” someone asks. Harry rolls his eyes. Was someone actually that _stupid?_

Wait, maybe it was the Concept of Stupidity.

_When she gets there she knows_  
if the stores are all closed  
With a word she can get   
what she came for

“What’s the music for?” Harry asks.

“So no one can hear when someone else is moving.”

The radio warbles again and switches to

_Rising up, back on the street_  
Did my time, took the chances  
Went the distance, now I’m back on my feet  
Just a man and his will to survive

“Eye of the Tiger, really?”

“Are you here to criticize my music choices or are we going to get back here alive.”

“That music is really old, Robin!”

Both of them move in sync, backs pressed to each other as Robin pulls the back of his shirt to the direction they’re supposed to go. “Really close, about two feet,” Robin says, “Rot them.”

“I don’t think I can do that without collapsing.”

“I can’t music him to death!”

“Break his neck, you have inhuman strength.”

Robin growls lowly again before launching himself to the source of the heat, elbowing what he thinks would be the face when the person makes a noise (he feels a nose break, so he’s right) and then takes hold of their neck and snaps it.

Unfortunately, the yelp the person gave attracted the rest of the Concepts and now he can hear footsteps rushing their way.

“Turn the music up, Robin!”

The radio switches again and the volume makes his head throb, grating against his ears as he forces the music to go as loud as it can.

**_Oh, whoa, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, whoa  
Oh, whoa, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, whoa_ **

“Harry!”

Someone tackles Robin to the ground and he crashes on his back with a groan. He really cannot hear anything over the music, but he can still feel their temperatures. Something tickles his chest and he guesses that would be the hair, so he ignores the painful beat in his head and pulls his assailant up by the hair, yanks them off of him and slams their face onto what he thinks is the floor. The head hits on something hard and Robin continues pounding the Concept’s face onto the concrete. He can hear the faint sounds of metal scrapping and things crashing down, as well as Harry calling his name over the noise, so he guesses his friend’s still good.

He slams the Concept’s face on the floor again.

****_Be careful making wishes in the dark, dark_  
Can't be sure when they've hit their mark  
And besides in the mean, mean time  
I'm just dreaming of tearing you apart

He feels the room rise in temperature as a newcomer enters.

“Manny?!” he yells as he stands up.

“Robin?!”

“Where’s Harry?”

“Right here!”

Another crash. Robin evades the different levels of walking temperatures he feels until he gets to where he thinks the hole was and hits a body. “Manny?”

“Yeah!” that’s Manny’s voice! Another source of heat was running towards them. “Look out! 3 o’clock!”

Manny swings an arm to his right, catches an arm and then pulls the owner of the limb close and starts hitting the person until he can feel the face. He slaps his hand on their mouth and pours ink down their throat as they struggle. When they stop moving, he lets go and sticks close to Robin.

****_I'm in the de-details with the devil_  
So now the world can never get me on my level  
I just gotta get you off the cage  
I'm a young lover's rage  
Gonna need a spark to ignite

“Where’s Harry?”

“Harry, make some noise!”

“I am right here!”

The voice comes a few feet away from them and Robin hears something hit the floor and then a wet crunch. Did Harry just – he nearly slips as his shoes step on something slippery. Yep, Harry might have just bashed someone’s skull in.

**_My songs know what you did in the dark_ **

Robin looks up and sees the faint light of the hole from upstairs. He pushes his friends directly under it and links his hands together again, “Manny, come on!”

****_So light 'em up, up, up_  
Light 'em up, up, up  
Light 'em up, up, up  
I'm on fire

Manny steps on his hands, jumps up and catches the edges of the hole and hauls himself up. Harry’s next and Manny helps him out. Robin doesn’t make it in time as he’s tackled to the ground again.

“Start drawing a trap!”

Manny turns to Harry, “The floor’s too brittle for us to walk around so much!”

They stand up slowly, not wanting to fall back down. Harry glances at the window and sets his mouth to a grim line, “I got an idea, get the markers out the truck.”

He and Manny slowly back away and he makes sure to yank the curtains off. Luckily, the metal holding it up was brittle and it comes off easily. Once they bring it out, they rush to the car and Harry flattens the curtains on the ground, accepting the markers from Manny.

“Take care of Paige and Tony, I got this.”

Manny nods and proceeds to untie the children slumped near the car, taking extra care not to disturb the wounds on them.

Harry has two hands working, drawing out the outer circle first before drawing the lines of the star, next were the inscriptions. It’s a few minutes before he finishes and he turns to Manny, who has just finished loading the kids in the backseat. He nods to him and they return back to the house.

Harry huffs, kneels down and puts a hand on the floor.

Slowly, the boards straighten themselves and knit its fibers together. Manny rushes over to the hole and calls out, “Robin!”

“Over here!”

“You’re far away, get over here!”

The music is still blasting full volume, but he can hear shoving and crashes before he sees Robin under him. Robin jumps up and catches his arms, almost tipping Manny over and the boards creak under his weight, threatening to collapse. Manny steels his jaw as he tries to lift Robin up, but is pulled back down again when someone grabs Robin back down.

Robin yells as he tries to kick them off, “Manny!”

“Harry, a little help here!” Manny’s slipping through the hole now, “Stop whatever you’re doing right now and help me, please!”

Harry drops the painted curtains and moves to where Manny is, grabbing him by the waist and heaving him upwards. More Concepts jump on Robin and Harry’s unable to pull them up. Robin screams as he feels something sink into his ribcage.

“Robin!”

“Don’t worry, just pull me up!” he hisses through his teeth. There shouldn’t be so many of them left, most of them attacked each other when he blew the lights out in confusion.

A sharp pulse of pain shoots through Manny’s head and he lets go of Robin, who almost slips if it wasn’t for him still clinging on to Manny’s arms.

“Manny, what the hell?!”

Manny starts shaking and Robin can see him rapidly blinking. “Manny?! Manny – holy shit.”

In the midst of the rapid blinking, Robin catches the faint glow of Manny’s eyes in the midst of the darkness of the basement. They’re glossed over, but Robin can feel the energy humming through his friend.

Someone snaps his knees back. Robin screams again. “Harry, pull us up!”

“I can’t!”

The floor creaks again and bits of wood and dust start to crumble down. Robin’s eyes widen, “Harry!”

Another stab in his gut. “Harry!”

The wood breaks under their combined weight and Robin lets go of Manny as they all fall back down the basement. Thankfully, their fall was cushioned by the ones who were grabbing onto Robin earlier. With majority of the floor collapsed, there’s enough light for them to see around the basement. The radio has been turned off, presumably from when Robin was distracted.

Harry is on the floor, breathing hard from overexertion and whimpers when someone grabs him by the hair to lift him up. Robin has his hands pressed to the multiple stab wounds on him and Manny is convulsing violently.

Prudence steps forward and sneers at them, “Good move.” They take out the bottle with the blue light out of their pocket again.

Manny looks up as best as he can. His stomach is hot and churning badly and his eyes look at the object in Prudence’s hands before shooting to his friends. His panic grows. He desperately tries to regain control of his body and crawl away, but his limbs aren’t cooperating with him.

Prudence towers over him with a sick grin.

Manny closes his eyes and waits for the blow to come.

 

 

It doesn’t.

 

 

Instead, he hears something pierce through the wind with enough speed to stir up a breeze and go through something with a squelch.

The throbbing in his head stops and so does the pain and convulsions.

Manny opens his eyes slowly and turns to where Prudence was, just in time to see the Concept drop to their knees and keel over, eyes wide. Manny sits up quickly and backs away, screaming.

There’s a sword that has pierced straight through the left side of Prudence’s chest, but what freaks him out isn’t that. It’s the sword itself. He’s seen that golden hilt before, he’s been on the receiving end of it and he knows that it’s possibly the only weapon on Earth that can cut through anything.

It’s Tony’s sword.

The question is, where did it come from?

One of the Concepts snap out of the collective shock and rush towards Prudence’s body, hand aiming for the sword’s hilt to grab it, but it _flies_ out on its own and lands in Manny’s hand instead. Manny’s eyes widen as he feels his body stand up against his will, take a step forward and do a backhand slash that catches the Concept’s neck, spraying blood everywhere.

The next few minutes are a blur. Harry and Robin are watching from their places on the floor, horrified, as Manny slashes down every other Concept left as if he’s been swordfighting his whole life. He dodges right on time, deflects blows and cuts at the crooks of elbows and knees whenever he can to hinder movement.

The whole time, Manny’s eyes are wide but he knows better than to struggle against whatever is in the sword that’s controlling him lest they risk him lumbering around inexperienced with a dangerous weapon in his hands.

Within a few minutes, everyone else save Harry, Robin and Manny are dead.

Manny drops the sword as soon as he gets his control back.

It clatters to the floor, slick with blood, but the energy humming off of it is absent. Manny feels no urge to pick it up and goes to his friends instead. Harry’s still exhausted and some of Robin’s bruises have already started to heal. They climb out the basement and Harry restores the floor with the last of his strength before he rushes out the porch, empties his stomach and proceeds to pass out. Luckily, Robin’s there to catch him before he flops face-first into his own mess.

Manny takes the marked curtains and spreads them across the floor, careful not to step inside the circle unless he wanted to get stuck. With a trap directly above them, even after regeneration, he thinks the Concepts downstairs are going to be stuck for some time.

*

The find Shrignold stuffed in a bag in the attic after he calls them. It turns out that, yes, he was killed (not permanently because it was luckily just one of Prudence’s goons who got to him) and the ended the fight just as he woke up. They drive back to the flat in silence, Robin driving, Shrignold included with Harry and the children in the back, still sleeping.

They move out the mess in the living room and set the kids down on the couches. With Harry down for the count and unable to reverse their injuries, Manny gets the first aid kit from the bathroom and helps Robin with treating Paige and Tony’s wounds while Shrignold gets the house in order, which isn’t an easy task with all the broken glass, torn furniture and blood everywhere.

The children wake up a few hours into the night.

Manny feels a poke on his cheek to see Paige looking at him. He’d fallen asleep on the floor.

She whispers, voice hoarse, “Where’s Tony?”

He points to the couch a few feet away from her. She sighs in relief and lies back down.

“Who were those people?” she asks.

Manny doesn’t answer.

She’s persistent for explanations until the next day, so they sit everybody down (didn’t let Shrignold leave) and, after leaving out the ‘you were Concepts who were punished and now you have to go through multiple lives for who knows how long’ bit, they told them there were very, very powerful and bad people after all of them and they needed to be careful. That ended up in a yelling match and half-hearted apologies, but afterwards, they were all good.

They decide to pack up and move to another place just in case.

There’s a thump on the door and Manny cautiously opens it by a crack, but sees no one there. Something slides sideward and hits his leg.

He looks down.

“Shit!”

He backs away and the sword falls into the room as the door opens wider. The others go to where he is, various items in hand in case there was danger. Robin raises an eyebrow at the sight of Tony’s weapon on the floor, “Is that the Time Sword?”

“ _Don’t_ give it a name!” Manny seethes, picking it up by the hilt and moving to toss it back out, but instead, he loses control of his body again and he slams the door close before walking to the coffee table and setting the weapon down. He regains control and stomps his feet, “Dammit!”

“What is it?” Harry asks.

“It – it can like, take control of my body or something!”

“That’s how you killed all those guys without any experience,” Harry mutters. Tony pushes his way past them and looks at the sword with wide eyes. All the adults swallow thickly. Manny looks at him for any sign of recognition but…all he sees is fascination and confusion.

“It looks like the second hand of an antique clock,” the boy says. Manny nods. Thankfully, all the blood on it from before seems to be gone.

“We need to get rid of it,” says Manny.

“No.” Manny opens his mouth to say something, but Robin beats him to it, “Manny, it’s clearly part of the package – I’m pretty sure the Time Sword was very vital to Time and since you’re inheriting the magic, you’re inheriting the weapon too.”

“Not to mention it’s actually no surprise because that weapon is ridden with magic,” Shrignold says, “One of you was bound to get it.”

“Just great,” Manny resigns to couch and sighs. He feels the sword hum in delight and glares at it, throwing caution to the wind, “Don’t you act so happy.”

“You can talk to it?” Tony asks.

He shrugs.

Seeing as it was apparently stuck to him now (it’d probably just follow him if he tried to get rid of it), he takes it along with them as they load the last of their things in Harry’s sedan while Harry himself signs the last papers to terminate their lease.  Shrignold bids them goodbye for now and they start down the road.

About an hour later, Harry slows down and rolls down his window.

He shakes Robin awake. The man beside him grumbles before turning to where Harry is pointing. Once he sees what Harry wants him to see, he shifts in his seat to punch Manny on the shoulder.

“Wha – ”

“Shh!” he puts his finger to his lips, motions towards the sleeping children and Manny frowns at him. He points outside.

Manny stiffens.

“I think that’s why that sword showed up.”

The place is familiar. In fact, sometimes when they get dreams about home, the setting is always this place. It’s their old neighborhood. The street of near-identical houses lined up cleanly. There are a lot more people now, with Paige and Tony gone. None of the houses sport the ‘For Lease’ sign on the lawns and Harry can see children playing around with bikes and hoses.

Their old house is right in front of them. Or at least, what’s left of it. It’s surrounded by police tape and in its place is a mass of charred wood and ashes. They know it’s their house because they know exactly where it’s placed – and this is it.

Manny wipes the corners of his eyes.

“It burned down,” Robin mutters, voice breaking at the end.

Harry continues to stare at the mess.

Manny sniffs. Robin thumps the side of his head on the windshield.

“Come on,” Harry starts the engine up again, “Carry on.”

They all meet each other’s eyes in the rearview mirror and sigh.

“Carry on.”

-

 

 

Terry Springroll sits at a coffee shop somewhere in Cardiff. He doesn’t know his age or his address, or his birthday or any other information about himself other than his name. A single cup of coffee sits in front of him and he does not remember ordering that either.

Someone sits beside him. He looks odd compared to the other people in the shop, but Terry doesn’t know much about how people are supposed to look.

The man doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t make Terry scared when he looks at him. When he smiles, Terry feels like he can trust him.

A little girl joins them later.

When both the girl and the man ask Terry to come with them, he says yes.

He doesn’t know where to go, why should he refuse?

*

Manny puts down the twenty fifth journal from Tony and massages his forehead.

“That was,” he mutters weakly, “By far the most screwed up story I have ever read.”

“You said that about the last twenty four,” Harry says.

Manny shrugs, “They’re all horrible.”

That earns him a few chuckles from the three other occupants in the room. He crosses his arms, “What I don’t get is that we should have the twenty sixth versions a few years ago. It’s been?” he looks at Harry.

“Forty two years.”

“Yeah, they usually arrive at twenty four to twenty five.”

“Huh.”

Manny is about to say something else when his throat seizes and he collapses on the floor, shaking. He can hear the others calling his name until the voices start to fade, then he feels a thud on the floor beside him, and they’re calling out to Robin.

He closes his eyes and the last thing he hears is another body falling.

 


End file.
